Surviving a Storm

Sometimes this faith journey goes pretty smoothly and it is easy to express your trust and dependence on God. At other times it feels lonely, frightening and sad. In 2020 it feels like we have been navigating the latter reality most of the time. The weird relational dynamic of this year exacerbates normal life stressers. I give grace and it is not returned. Every street feels like it is one-way. Dear friends are deeply wounded by words and posts from people who claim to be following Jesus. Judgements are rendered that are not ours to make. I agonize over how these believers can wound so deeply and still say they know Christ? Marriage vows are abandoned at the altar of self. Illness ravages families and friends. I question my ability to have any impact for Christ as I stumble clumsily through my own journey. Simple trust is a concept that is anything but simple to live out. And yet I
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The Worst Day of Peter’s Life

There is much written about Good Friday. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross is incomprehensible to my puny human intellect. There is much written about Easter Sunday. Christians around the world rejoice and proclaim that “He is risen!”. But there is not nearly as much written about one of the saddest and most confusing days in history. The Saturday between the Friday horror of Jesus on the Cross and the Sunday mystery of the resurrection. Some churches do observe Holy Saturday but it was never a tradition in my faith upbringing. I have been thinking about what that day must have been like for those who dropped everything to follow Jesus. How crushing those events had to be. I imagine the fear they felt that they would also be killed. And for what? On Saturday they feared they had given their careers and their very souls for a false hope. I think in particular of Peter. I identify
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