When I was twelve years old, my grandmother, Shar Shar (the grandchildren shortened Sharon) gave me a journal on Easter. The spine shimmered with gold paint, and the rest of the cover danced in an intricate Victorian pattern. The front cover had a picture of a young girl kneeling in prayer. She wore a dress from another time, and her hair piled on the top of her head. Gentle sunlight bathed over her silhouette. The journal was a treasure to me. It seemed that a journal like this should be filled with words, and the appearance of it sparked my imagination and my own desire to write. Instead of writing frivolous entries about boys or my days events, I wrote my prayers. It seemed the journal would accept nothing else. God used that journal in my life for it was the start of dozens more.

I occasionally read back through my entries from years ago. Some entries span for eight to ten pages detailing events where God showed his miraculous power.   On other pages, the ink runs murky as I scribble through the death of a dear friend or loved one. My life is written by my own hand among those pages as I lived them. All my trials and sufferings are there to be relived again but with a different perspective.

I wondered today, if I would be willing to live through some of those events again. Truthfully, my answer is no, but I’m not sure that it should be. God’s faithfulness, his mercy, his forgiveness, and his unending love are written between the lines of those pages. Through my suffering and trials, I witnessed the power of God. Perhaps that is why I wasn’t given a choice then. I didn’t get to choose weather or not I walked through the fire because I would have inevitably gone another route and had less need for Christ.

I can’t imagine how in Acts 21, the apostle Paul is given a warning from God he would experience a great deal of suffering by walking into Jerusalem to preach the gospel to the gentiles. Paul knew that God wanted him to walk through the gates of that city though, and so he went willingly into suffering knowing that Christ would receive praise for his hardship. He chose it, just like his savior, Christ, who walked willingly into the step of his Father’s will with the weight of the cross on his shoulders. He chose suffering for the sake of our redemption and God’s glory.  Are we that willing to go wherever the Spirit leads?

In my dining room rests a dark cherry table. For all her elegance, she has a bit of visible character engraved within her. Towards the southern edge, her once pristine finish has been disrupted by slanted calligraphy unintentionally carved into her surface. If you tilt your head slightly to the left, the sunlight will catch it in the afternoon, it reads, “…being made conformable unto his death…” the last part of Philippians 3:10, my father-in-law’s favorite verse. Closer to the northwestern corner the table has less glamorous details. Scratches and indentations have roughed the once smooth area. Micah eats there, and his three-year-old adventures with his fork and spoon occur there as well. If you look even more closely, you will notice another oddity. She is square. She wasn’t always that way though. Before we moved, she fit in a smaller room as a rectangle, but when we came here, she had to grow. So, the center leaf of the table was fitted into place, now contrasting with the outer leafs that have been used years longer.

Every Friday night she holds up leaning elbows, clasped fingers, and the occasional thumping of an intricate drum beat from my husband’s restless hands. And, some Friday nights, like this past one, an occasional tear will drip on her surface, but I don’t think she minds. We fit there perfectly. Sometimes we crowd around her corners to make room for more, but always, we fit perfectly.

Thankfully she isn’t bothered by our gatherings because she is just like us, beautifully made, but full of rough spots.

On Friday nights, there is nowhere else that I would rather be than at my table’s edge, my elbows resting on her sturdy supports among familiar faces for Life Group.  I hope, if you have never come, that you will. This is where church happens, just like it did when the first Christian church was ever formed after Christ’s death and resurrection.

“All the believers were together and had everything in common…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Acts 2:44-47

 

by Brittany T.  Lewis

 

I slouched in my chair absorbed in a book when Micah interrupted my concentration with his mindless chatter. I heard him blabbering about whatever was on his three-year-old mind. Something pressed within me, so I set my book down. A few seconds later, he looked at me with his big brown eyes and said, “But what happens when mommies and daddies are kilt? When you and daddy are kilt, I will miss you and I will be all alone.” His eyes puddled with tears of fear instead of the carefree bliss that should have been there. No, I thought…No, God, don’t let his peace be disrupted by such horrific thoughts. Let me deal with those thoughts, not him.

How many times have I raced through that same scenario allowing fear to boil up? The enemy had already begun plaguing his innocence with worry; I had to respond. I did the only thing that came to mind. Scooping him up in my arms, I said, “Micah, bad things happen, but Jesus holds us through it all, just like I am holding you now.” Then I prayed as fervently as I knew how, using words that I hoped Micah could understand.

As much as I wanted to say that we wouldn’t be killed anytime soon, I couldn’t’ because I didn’t know what could happen tomorrow. One of the biggest lies out there is that God is going to shield us from tragedy and heartache after we become a Christian. No. If you have been following Christ for any amount of time, you know this not to be true. Christians suffer often times more than the nonbeliever for we become a target to the enemy as soon as Christ begins to work in our lives.

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

1 Peter 1:6-7

The Bible is clear in saying that we will endure hardships. It is definitely in God’s power to save us from anything he chooses to, but that does not mean that we will not face grief. God refines us through these trials. He burns away all of the impurities in those times. Like Paul, we should embrace these difficulties resting in the knowledge and peace that God is drawing us nearer to himself.

I won’t ever understand why my little boy insists on heaping life’s anxieties on his small shoulders, but God will have to take that worry away as Micah grows, just like he takes away my own worry for I know that God will hold me dearly when the things I fear most do happen. Considering this, I hope and pray that, when the time comes, we will have the faith to dance with Jesus in our spirits as the fire surrounds us resting in the joy that he is drawing us near.

 

The road sign flashed its yellow lights adamantly at our minivan as we rolled by, “Snow tires or snow chains only.” It was a little late for that warning; we couldn’t go back now. Our new family vehicle was packed with precious cargo including my two children, the youngest being only eight days old at the time. I sat cringing in the back seat, still extremely tender from the c-section surgery the week before. After a week of restless recovery cooped up in the house, we had decided we wanted to take a leisurely drive to Park City for the afternoon to witness the Sundance Film Festival.

What had started out as a pretty picture of winter on the way there had quickly turned into a monster of a snowstorm. My mind raced through our current situation. The road had not been plowed like we had expected.  We did not have chains or snow tires. Visibility was limited. The back windows refused to stay clear enough for Britton to see out of. We had just very narrowly escaped a collision…and we hadn’t even ascended Parley’s Summit, which was sure to be a slippery mess. This was bad, very bad. I sat in silence. Britton clutched the steering wheel and continued on. All I could think was “I’m so glad I’m not the one driving,” and then I prayed mightily.

Four hours later we finally did make it back to the safety of our home. I truly thank God for that, and will count that adventure as novice mistake of a few Texans. Nonetheless, God painted a beautiful picture for me that afternoon, a picture that weighs on my heart even as I write.

Ephesians 5:23-27 says, “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior…Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

This chapter in Ephesians beautifully describes the roles laid out by God for the husband and wife in the family unit. I readily admit that parts of this chapter left me confused and even angry earlier in my life because of my own lack of understanding. But God has revealed this wonderful truth to me, and now I treasure what I used to resent.

What particularly weighs on me today is how God describes the role of the husband. It is a difficult, practically impossible command. Essentially, God has told the husband to lead his wife in a way that will draw her nearer to Christ edifying her even in the dark nights of the soul. Not only must he love her in this way, but also God has placed him as the head of the home. This doesn’t mean that women are any less important or any less valued by God. What it simply means is that God holds the man responsible for the family. The pressure is on our husbands to lead our households towards the cross. That is a heavy burden to bear. As Britton drove us through the storm that day, he felt the weight of our lives in his hands at the wheel. The comforting thing is that God was guiding him; He had his hand on us the entire way.

I want to open this up for a bit of dialogue by having you comment about these questions.

-What might the role of wives look like in our 20^th century culture? Does this scripture still apply?

– How does the weight of a husband’s leadership relate with the weight and burden of a pastor’s leadership? How can we as a church body be encouraging to our leaders in light of this?

 

 

My blonde hair was becoming damp beneath the weight of the covers piled high above me. There had to be a least a foot of fluffiness on top of me while I was sleeping, just in case a bad guy came into my room with a knife to stab me; he wouldn’t actually get me then, just a slice of fabric. Sweat continued to dampen my hair. It didn’t help that I refused to sleep in my Little Mermaid PJs. There was no way I could safely jump through a broken window wearing those thin things and no shoes! I couldn’t explain that to my momma though; she wouldn’t understand me.  If there was a fire in my house, the only way to get out would be to break my window, so I had to wear all of my clothes, including my socks and shoes…just in case. I blinked my eyes. There was no way I was going to be ready for that spelling test tomorrow in Mrs. Kern’s class. I was too afraid to fall asleep. I slipped my arm out of the mound of covers and reached under my bed. There it was, nice and smooth, my dad’s baseball bat. That could come in handy for a variety of horrible events…just in case.

I’m so sleepy. My eyes began to droop, and my mind wonder. What happens when we die? I’m scared to find out. It will be so scary. Will I be forever drifting in darkness? Wait, do I hear something? Footsteps in the hallway? Mom?

With my heart thudding and my mind racing, I finally fell asleep. This was a normal routine for me at the age of 8 years old.

This past Sunday, Pastor Matt talked about fear. That sermon struck a chord with me because it was such a huge part of my past. There is not much I remember about my life before I became a Christian because I was a small child, but the one thing that I do remember is the fear. It was so irrational, but my imagination allowed for the most improbable things to happen to me. It didn’t help that I had nightmare and night terrors of three-headed dragons breaking through the floor in my room, ready to eat me, and of evil men trying to chop my limbs off with a chainsaws. That fear incapacitated me as a child. The thing that it all boiled down to was the fear of death and dying. I didn’t know what would happen. Then, Christ reached His hand down into my young life and gave me the greatest gift I could have ever wanted, peace. Once I accepted Christ, and trusted in His grace and love, I stopped fearing death. With a child-like faith, I was able to trust in His goodness and anticipate heaven. I didn’t fully understand everything because I was just a child, but that was the beauty of it.

Since then, God has continued to arm me with scriptures to battle fear. “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Tim 1:7.

Throughout my life I have had to continually battle fears, mostly irrational fears. Those fears, I know are simply a tool from the enemy to make me useless. Once, when Micah was a year and a half old, I had a horrible vision of him dying in a car accident on a field trip with his daycare. At that moment God spoke truth to me. He said, “Brittany, you just had the best time with your son where you were overflowing with gratitude to me, and now here you are on the verge of tears thinking about something that has definitely not happened. Do not let Satan rob you of your joy. Let me give you joy, child.”

Let’s breathe in that joy as a church this week and refuse to let the enemy rob Lakeside.

I read today each gospel’s account of Christ’s trial and crucifixion. I was pained while reading them. I can only imagine how each author felt when re-living the events as they wrote it in astonishing detail.

The crowd stood watching with indifference. Religious leaders mocked him saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One” (Luke 23:35).  The thief jeered, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39).  And, at the foot of the cross, where blood flowed down sat the soldiers, coveting the garments, casting lots for a shred of cloth, greed filling their eyes and their smiles.

Raised high above that scene hung our brutally beaten Savior, arms stretched wide, praying for the forgiveness of the mockers, the brutes, the thieves, and the covetous. The cross mirrored the scene on the ground, for the cross was the judgment set aside for all of the sinners surrounding Christ, but Christ willingly took each sinner’s penalty so they wouldn’t have to.

With that, Jesus Christ gave up his spirit. No one else could have taken it from him, but he relinquished it as a sacrifice, pure and holy.

We serve an amazing Lord, don’t we? He bore the cross, the weight of God’s judgment and wrath so that we could relish is God’s grace and love. Thank you, Jesus, for Good Friday.

A sickening screech from the gut of the Rooster pierced the hour of reigning darkness as Peter continued sputtering curses while saying, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about! I do not know the man!” Immerging from the blurriness of Peter’s sight, he saw Jesus deliberately turn his direction. Christ’s eyes, glinting with blood and tears against the firelight, stared into the pit that was Peter’s soul, and Peter remembered, (Luke 22:60-61).

“You will all fall way,” Jesus said, sorrow filling his voice. “Even if all fall away, I will not,” Peter insisted (Mark 14:27,31). He remembered the pain filling Jesus’ features, the depth of emotion in his voice, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers…I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me,” (Luke 31-34).

Understanding flooded Peter’s mind as Christ’s gaze was interrupted by a backhanded slap from the high priest, Caiaphas. Spit followed, oozing down Jesus’ face. Peter slowly looked down at the palms of his hands that he had been warming by the fire among Jesus’ enemies. His fingers clinched inward, muscles tightening in his arms as he glared at them in disgust. “I am no better than Caiaphas.” He backed away from the warmth of the fire into the cold night air as a bitter remorseful groan escaped from his lips.

 

Today, as I read, I was able to experience Peter. I was able to feel the sorrow and loneliness of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane as Peter, James, and John, his closest disciples, continually fell asleep during the moment of Jesus’ greatest agony.  Then, Peter brandished a sword upon Judas’ betrayal, cutting off the ear of a servant. In this moment, I remembered how Christ had just petitioned to the Lord to take the cup of wrath from him but had submitted to the will of the Lord, and then we find that it is Peter who wants to fight to prevent God’s will from happening. Then Jesus commanded Peter to put his sword away saying, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”(John 18:11). Peter, along with the rest of the disciples fled as fear for their lives overpowered their earlier resolve to remain by their Rabbi’s side. And finally, I saw the full impact of Peter’s denial of Christ who had to endure the beatings utterly alone. I felt the shame Peter must have been overcome with as he realized what had occurred.

Peter, who had walked along the side of Jesus for three years, witnessed the miracles first-hand, and had sat under the canopy of Jesus’ teaching hearing the words spoken directly from the Savior’s voice, had denied Christ. God’s message came subtly to me as I pondered this. Christ continually told his disciples in the week of his crucifixion that it was better that he die so that the Counselor could come to them (John 16). Christ had not died yet, and Peter, though he had known Jesus in such a personal way, had not experienced the Holy Spirit’s power. This was to happen after Christ’s death and resurrection, after Christ’s spirit was released to the believers’ to dwell in their hearts and strengthen them. Sure enough, just as the Christ predicted, Peter was utterly changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the blood of Christ, as he became the person whom the early church budded, spreading like wild vines through the nations.

That is the power of the resurrection. That is the strength that we in the year 2012 can still draw from, for Christ died to set us free from our sin, the same sin that caused Peter’s denial. In that freedom, he gave us a gift, the Holy Spirit, to guide us and empower us to accomplish his will as a church body. I encourage you to tap into that power through prayer today.

Continue reading the gospels with me tomorrow, and see what God will reveal to you as we remember the death of our Lord the King on Good Friday.

 

This morning, I was multitasking a bit. While sitting in my chair finishing a cup of coffee, I was reading my Bible to my left, burping Judah over my right shoulder, and cuddling Micah, who just couldn’t stand to sit somewhere else, on the right arm of the chair. This was doomed to be an impossible balancing act. Sure enough, Judah finally burped. Along with that much-needed burp came an endless stream of slimy spit up that oozed down a long lock of my hair! Micah then fell off the armrest into the floor. Oops…

A little later, as I was washing the mess, I started thinking about my hair. My oldest son, Micah, is quite obsessive about it. He becomes very upset with me if I talk about cutting it, and then to top it off, if I pull it back in a pony tail on a hot day, he gets angry with me exclaiming with downturned eyebrows, “I don’t want you to turn your hair into a ponytail!” Undoubtedly strange behavior, but in 1 Corinthians the Bible says that hair is a woman’s glory. Maybe that explains my son’s reaction.

That incident this morning was brought full circle, by God’s purpose I’m sure, upon reading again this afternoon in the book of John. The Spirit of God stirred within me as the story before me came to life in my mind:

Sounds of jubilee clamored in the air, leaking through the windows into the small town of Bethany as people celebrated Jesus of Nazareth who had brought a beloved man, Lazarus, back from the dead. Disciples gathered near while Martha prepared the meal to honor Jesus. Just then, the sweet fragrance of worship flooded the house, overpowering the aroma of freshly baked bread, tickling the greed of Judas Iscariot. Judas glared at the floor where an entire pint expensive alabaster perfume had just been poured. There kneeling as her hair flowed down was Mary of Bethany gently washing the Savior’s feet in the humblest way possible.

Judas sneered in disapproval, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” But, in this man’s heart, greed flourished and he couldn’t see the real worth of the Savior. Jesus spoke firmly at first, “Leave her alone…It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial…She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me…I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her,” (Matthew 26, John 12).

This all occurred a week before Christ’s body was bruised and bloodied on the cross. Mary, though chastised by those around her who were concerned with matters of this world, lowered herself by cleaning the most humble part of the body, the feet, with the most glorified part of herself, her hair. As she scrubbed away the muck with her hair, Mary laid down her own glory to anoint Christ and glorify him. She brought honor to Christ in this way. Even now as I write, just as Christ foretold, what she did to honor him is being shared because, although it seemed like waste to everyone else, she gave Christ the honor he deserved.

What glory of ours might we lie down at the Savior’s feet?

This is day two of our challenge before Easter. I pray that you keep searching the scriptures in preparation for Good Friday. I can’t wait to hear and see what God has shown you!

The dust had barely settled on the road into the heart of Jerusalem from Jesus’ triumphal entry riding a young colt. Branches lay littering the pathway, broken, trampled by the crowds from the previous day. Echoes of “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “Blessed is the King of Israel!” could be heard in the minds of the slumbering people in Jerusalem. They slept peacefully amidst the boiling political unrest because they had hope in a man named Jesus of Nazareth whom, they thought promised deliverance for the people of Israel. Little did they know exactly what Jesus planned to conquer.

Jesus himself rested in the town of Bethany, close to Jerusalem for the night (Mark 11:11), knowing all the while, that in the short days ahead he would walk down a treacherous path.

The next day, Jesus traveled back to Jerusalem, and upon entering the temple area, he drove out merchants, overturned their tables, ringing out truth into the hearts of the corrupted. This did not sit well with the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, and so they began to plot how to get rid of this man named Jesus.

This is the scene set from reading the scriptures in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  It seems like very rarely do we read the scriptures as a whole where we can get the big picture.  Today, I was compelled to do just that, and as I poured over the scriptures, I heard something that I’d never heard before. I heard desperation in the writings of Matthew as he records events and the parables spoken from his Savior during the last week of Christ’s life before the crucifixion. Jesus has his own sort of desperation as he imparts his knowledge to his disciples about the days ahead while he puts the Pharisees in their place as they continually attempt to trap him. It was such a truly desperate time in the history of humanity.

As our days unfold before this Good Friday, I want you, Lakesiders, to open up the gospels and see what you find there. These words divinely echo the past, this past that is our future. Read the disciples’ accounts of what our Lord endured and what he conquered for us and see if God imparts another dynamic that you have never understood before.

In the few days ahead, I will do this along with you and let you know what I find. It’s an exciting adventure that I pray will prepare our hearts for a sincere remembrance of Christ’s death and joyful celebration of his victory!

I was standing at the baggage claim in the Salt Lake International Airport, trying to keep our four suitcases in an upright position and Micah, my 3 year-old son, by my side all the while carrying my 9-week-old infant in a sling across my chest along with my bulging diaper bag and ridiculously heavy purse. Then, I saw him. My husband, Britton, came calmly walking towards us, and I breathed a sigh of relief; I was home. After nearly three weeks visiting Texas, I was finally back to my new home, Utah.

It was a treasure to be able to see all of our family after such a long time without them. Micah and Judah got to fatten up on grandparent time, and were undoubtedly stuffed with tons of love. This visit became difficult towards the end though. Saying goodbye is never easy for myself, but now Micah had begun to experience it too. So, when the car door closed, and he had given Brit’s parents kisses, he said to me, “I’m going to miss Nanna and Papa here in Texas when we go to the airport.” When I looked back at him, my heart broke. Big crocodile tears streaked down his exhausted face. These goodbyes weren’t just my burden anymore; he shared them too.

That night, I wrestled with my emotions as doubts and fears flooded through me. In a moment of intense longing, longing for my family and friends that I would soon have to leave, God spoke so tenderly to me. Through all of my doubts He whispered truth that is this. Through separation, we learn to love more deeply. I prize moments that before I took for granted. The same is true with the rest of this life. To feel the pains of absence is to know the pleasure of one’s company. To know sorrow is to cherish the ecstasy of joy, and to know death is to understand the preciousness of every living breath in life.

Knowing this doesn’t necessarily make things less painful in the trying times, but it does provide us with peace for God is muddying His hands in our soul’s rough clay, rubbing away the imperfections through life’s trials.

While the distance from here to West Texas is not getting any shorter, I do know one thing. My love for my family grows stronger, and that love bridges the hundreds of miles between us. For that, I am thankful to our God for bringing us here to Lakeside where we are another of family to come home to, where we stand by one another and experience the paradoxes of life together. While pain inevitably will come in our lives and we will continuously ask why during those times, we can rest assured that our Maker has us right where He wants us to be while He smoothes away our rough edges.