Birthing pains. The agonizing pains a woman endures as the life inside desires to purge herself from her amniotic cocoon that’s been her incubator. Pain indicates the fullness of time. Time to exit a space no longer hospitable to life. Dying pains. Remarkably they mirror birthing pains; reluctance, fear of the unknown, purgation, and fragility. The guarantee of human existence is that we enter and leave in much the same way–– through birthing pains. Birth…
Like Jesus, who went to the cross not for pain in itself but ‘for the joys that were set before him’, so we are to make this journey through the memories of pain and darkness, not to stay with these things but to redeem them and move beyond them. […] We, who build so many hells on earth, need to know that there is no place so dark, no situation so seemingly hopeless, that cannot…
Last year I provided an Advent practice of journaling with the words of Advent. This is a practice that I started a few years ago as a way to be intentional in this season. If you don’t know much about Advent or weren’t able to participate in last year’s practice you can view it here. This year I want to provide the same opportunity. I have put together a new list of words for those…
Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19 There is no end to the love created and exuding the Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit A flowing…
