What Is Your Thorn?

Is there a thorn in your life?

“They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him,
and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.”
Matthew 27:28

“The Crown of Thorns” Gustave Dore 1865

Thorns hurt us.  They are sharp and cause pain. Is there something in your life that you would call a thorn?

The Bible mentions thorns more than once.

• Genesis 3:17-18  “Cursed is the ground because of you … It will produce thorns and thistles for you”  Thorns came to earth as a result of sin.
• In Genesis 22 when Abraham offers his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, God provides a perfect male, whose head was caught in thorn bushes.
• In Exodus 3 when God speaks to Moses from a burning bush, it is a thorn bush.  God speaks from the bush, a symbol of sin,  and says, “I have seen the misery of my people … so I have come down to rescue them …”
• In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh.

Paul knew the scriptures well.  He knew the references to thorns.   He also knew of the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus.  Paul was an excellent writer and chose his words carefully. It is no accident that he uses a thorn to describe his problem.
We all are hurt by sin. Sometimes the sin is our own doing.  Sometimes it is inflicted from others.  Sometimes it is the sin of the fallen world around us – illness, disasters, death.

 “I have seen the misery of my people … so I have come down to rescue them …”
That’s a nice promise.

Do you have a thorn? Do you need a rescue?

 Jesus, give me the perspective today to see the thorns in my life.  Give me forgiveness for the sin that I see in myself. Give me the ability to forgive others for the pain that they have caused me through their sin.  Help me to trust you in spite of the pain in the world around me.  As I move toward Easter open my heart to understand the good of the cross.  Amen

Laurie and Betsy

The Writing Sisters

Preparing for Christmas

Christmas gifts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Preparation is the action or process of making something ready for use or service.

Our grandfather was a man who came prepared for Christmas. He traveled from South Carolina to our home in West Virginia with suitcases full of gifts. A country ham was carefully packed it a separate bag with fried apple pies and Christmas cookies.

We would wait for him, four grandkids, our noses pressed against frosted windows looking for his car and listening for the honking horn that would begin at the bottom of the street, up the hill and into the driveway.

Our grandfather died at Christmas. He was on his way to West Virginia his bags packed when he passed away suddenly at the airport. All our preparations for Christmas stopped the festivities replaced by life’s interventions, a funeral, and taking care of all the details.

A few weeks after Christmas we helped to clean out his apartment. As we sorted through his books we found his Bible. We sat together on the floor of his closet surrounded by shoes and papers and flipping through the pages. Each chapter was covered with writing and underlining. Each page a testimony to what his faith meant to him.

Preparation for Christmas is more than wrapping gifts and baking cookies. Preparation is about the heart.

Our grandfather was a man who came prepared for Christmas.

Laurie and Betsy

And it will be said:

“Build up, build up and prepare the road!

Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”

Isaiah 57:14

 

The Power of Our Stories

If I want to get to know you I don’t look at a resume or the list of letters after your name.  If I want to get to know you I will listen to your stories. I can know about you from what people tell me, but knowing you comes from your stories. This way I can learn about your character and your heart.  I learn what you value and what you love.

We tell about ourselves every day through anecdotes and conversations.  We write our stories in blogs and emails.  We tell our stories indirectly through fiction. ( Yes, Little Bunny often has our same issues and reveals our inmost fears and feelings.) The stories we tell and write reveal who we are.

God reveals Himself through the stories in the Bible.  I can know about God from what people tell me, but knowing God comes from reading and valuing His stories. This way I can learn about God’s character and His heart.  I learn what He values and what He loves.

Stories move us. This is their power. Written stories are frozen voices that come to life when we read them. No other art form involves us in the same way—allows us to be with another human being—to feel joy when he laughs, to share her sorrow, to follow the twists and turns of his plotting and scheming, to realize her insufficiencies and failures and absurdities, to grasp the tools of her resistance—from within the mind itself. Such experience—such knowledge from within—makes us feel that we are not alone in our flawed humanity.” ~ Margaret Atwood

Are you telling your story today?  Are you listening, reading and valuing the stories of the people around you? Are you reading God’s stories?

What do stories mean to you?

Laurie and Betsy

Related Articles:

Writing With Insight

Writing With Healing

Writing With Intention: “I Cannot Come Down.”

Image via Wikipedia

There will be seasons when you feel like you are making little if any progress.  In those times it will be easy to get distracted.  This is when you must join with Nehemiah in declaring, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”  

Andy Stanley, Visioneering

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Church in Atlanta, often preaches from the book of Nehemiah focusing on this verse:

“I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”   Nehemiah 6:3

He claims that this verse is a life verse for him to remind him of the importance of setting priorities in life and work.  Nehemiah had been given the work of rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem.  Others tried to thwart his plans by distracting him. Nehemiah refused to be deterred from his work and this statement that he makes over and over in the story is one that we would do well to remember:

“I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”   Nehemiah 6:3

Writing is a solitary venture and time spent writing is not seen by others.  I struggle with the difficulty of saying no to others who think that I have unlimited time because I am not working outside the home.  Early on I learned to put my writing time on the calendar and considering it my full-time job.  I must honor the work that God has given me. It is especially hard when I’m struggling with rejection or writer’s block. When I was working outside the home and writing, it was hard to prioritize that small amount of time that I had in the early morning and evening.

Often I am pulled away from writing by lesser ventures.  It is so easy to say yes to the good and not to keep working on the best.

Like Nehemiah, you have a destiny to fulfill.  God has placed before you opportunities and responsibilities that are brimming with divine significance.   Andy Stanley, Visioneering

“I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”   Nehemiah 6:3