Tagged: Lent

Having said these things, Jesus left with His disciples and went across the ravine of the Kidron. There was a garden there, which He and His disciples entered.  John 18:1 God gives us gardens on our darkest night. Over a millennium before this black night of betrayal, another king left Jerusalem and crossed the ravine of the Kidron. Yet there is no reference to a garden there. Instead, he continued, climbing barefoot with his head covered, to the Mount of Olives as the people wept aloud. His name was King David, and he too had been betrayed. You can read his story in 2 Samuel 15.  The Kidron Valley has long been a theater for history’s most tragic parades. On the eve of his death,… Read More

For Pastor S, who showed me the Fourth Man’s scars. …our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.  Daniel 3:17   Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.  Mark 14:36 I avoided the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego after the fire. I tried not to think about the skippy, trippy tune of an old praise song based on Isaiah 43:2 promising though we walk through fire… Read More

Caution: This post contains graphic descriptions of physical wounds and may be uncomfortable for some readers. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. Matthew 4:23 We needed to turn him several times a day to avoid bedsores. Before the fire, bedsores were something unfamiliar to us, something that sounded repulsive and painful, like a blister, something that happened to my grandmother when she moved to a nursing home during my childhood. But then I had to tend one, just one, on my son’s heel, for almost a year. So deep it reached the bone, this bedsore became my arch enemy, determined to drill its way through the other… Read More

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. Acts 1:14 The suffering of our children changes us.   The last time we saw Mary, she was standing at the foot of the cross, watching a mother’s worst nightmare. Her beloved Son, the Firstborn who made her a mother, was dying. When Jesus saw the mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. John 19:26-27 But Jesus rose again. He conquered death and all the trauma surrounding it. Mary could… Read More

No Scar?   Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land; I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star. Hast thou no scar?   Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent, Leaned me against a tree to die, and rent By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned. Hast thou no wound?   No wound? No scar? Yet as the Master shall the servant be, And, pierced are the feet that follow Me. But thine are whole; can he have followed far Who has nor wound nor scar?   -Amy Carmichael From Mountain Breezes: The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1999),… Read More

I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again, and going to the Father (John 16:28). As joyful shouts filled the air and palm branches blanketed the road into Jerusalem, no one seemed to realize that Jesus was in transition. Like the seismic shift of tectonic plates in the earth during an earthquake, the landscape of human history was tilting and changing. And Jerusalem was the fault line.  Jesus was entering the space in between, a place between The Way Things Used to Be and the Way Things Will Be. Between an earthly home and a heavenly one. He had made this shift before through the power of labor and delivery, His newborn cry piercing the… Read More

This is the revised edition of a popular post originally published on audreyfrank.org March 31, 2019. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28). “I want to be an astronaut, but I still want to be a doctor, too,” she said, her beautiful brow crinkled in consternation. “Well, astronauts need doctors to care for them,” I suggested. “I know. But I’m not worrying about it. I’ve put that stress on Jesus. Is that okay? To give Jesus my stress?” “Yes,… Read More

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:35-38) Jesus was comfortable in the company of outcasts. For so long I skipped right over the heart-stopping, radical action of this passage. I barely paused to notice. Okay, so Jesus went after an outcast. He was Jesus, after all, and that’s what He did. It was part of his Messiah job description. Then I began to live and work among the outcast… Read More

Walking in the dark night of Africa is risky. The black mamba, one of the world’s deadliest snakes, can completely camouflage himself within the inky darkness. He is one of the few snakes which are active at night and particularly loves wood or metal that has absorbed the heat of the day.  We encountered the black mamba only once, coiled around the grating on our screen door. After a long night of good conversation and milky, hot chai by lantern light, we walked our guests to the door. As my husband reached out his hand, the darkness moved, alerting us to the killer’s poisonous presence. The sleeping village erupted in excited shouts as men, women, and children came running from every direction to kill the… Read More

And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Luke 19:36-38, NET I’ve always been a flinger. For the first three decades of my life, I rarely spread anything before the Lord. Spread sounds so calm. So careful. I tend instead to fling my cares before Him, cast my cries up to heaven, throw myself at His feet. Sometimes I come dancing and shouting. That’s how… Read More