September 2012 Blog Posts (3)

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the “upper room discourse” lately, in John 13-14 in particular so far. It’s an interesting section, since it’s one of the few where you really see Jesus interacting with His disciples collectively, instead of just one or two at a time. Heck, we even get a line out of Jude/Thaddeus (aka Judas Not Iscariot) here.

It’s also a hard section to wrap your head around, and simultaneously kind of annoying because it sounds like Jesus is constantly repeating…

     I watch the children engaged in Sunday School activities. One child, dressed in costume as Ezra, steps up on a wooden platform and reads the Bible aloud to a small group. Another child, pretending to be Ezra the scribe, sits and copies Bible verses. Nearby, children are bowling, knocking over labeled juice bottles and arranging them in Bible book order by division: Law, History, Poetry and Wisdom, and Major Prophets.…

If you've read my blog in the past (which I know is extremely sporadic!), you know that I love stories. And I love the way that God uses these stories from friends and acquaintances to speak to me in a very personal way. I was with three friends at lunch this week, enjoying the food, the conversation, and the companionship. After lunch, one of my friends shared this story with me:

Her family has been going through a lot recently. While the whole family has struggled, her…