Greater Expectations by Lorraine Triggs

I loved the Baptist church in which I grew up, but that didn’t prevent a bad flu-like case of high church envy. It would typically surface around Ash Wednesday. “Why can’t I get ashes on my forehead like Laurie?” I pouted. “All my friends have them.” And it would peak on Palm Sunday. “Why don’t we get real palm branches? Why don’t we march around the church and shout hosanna? All we do is sit in church.” By the time another Palm Sunday ended in disappointment, my fever broke and I was ready to move on to egg hunts and Easter baskets.

Disappointment is a funny word. It speaks of failure to meet a hope or expectation of someone.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, crowds followed him into the city for Passover. Jesus was trending. He had fed thousands of people with a single lunch, raised Lazarus from the dead and healed blind Bartimaeus. What would he do next? It seemed he could do anything.

The king had come—even though he rode on a donkey, and not a white stallion. His moment had arrived. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9, 10) Expectations and speculation ran high. Surely, Jesus would roll back taxes, ease restrictions, and put a kosher chicken in every pot while he’s at it.

Perhaps the disciples were caught up in the excitement and expectations of the crowd, wondering what would happen once the palm branches and cloaks were cleared from the road. In the end, were they disappointed with withered fig trees, overturned temple tables, a basin and towel, a betrayer’s kiss and a rooster’s crowing.

Like the crowd and the disciples, it’s all too easy for us to have expectations of a savior who, all too often, looks like us—human. This savior will avenge our enemies, fight for our causes, restore us to position and power.

Jesus didn’t meet the disciples or the crowd’s expectations of a savior, nor does he meet ours—he exceeds them, fulfilling the promise of the prophet:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

This is our Savior, humble and mounted on a donkey as he entered Jerusalem; then humbled and lifted high on the cross this Lamb of God, righteous and having salvation, takes away the sin of the world.

I might have been a Baptist suffering from high church envy, but now I have greater expectations for a greater Palm Sunday to come.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)

Hosanna!

The Echoing Questions by Wil Triggs

On one of my dog walks this week, while listening to my Bible reading, I heard something I hadn’t ever before noticed. In the story Jesus told in Matthew 25 where he divides the sheep from the goats, (vv. 31-46) both the sheep and the goats ask the Son of Man their own versions of the same question:

The sheep ask: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ The goats ask: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” 

Both were surprised by the judgement of God over their lives.

The people who were headed to a place of eternal blessings by the Father, the ones inheriting the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, didn’t even realize that their action or inaction had to do with life-saving care to Jesus. They did good things without even realizing it.

The people who had not done well were equally flabbergasted by the pronounced judgment of furor. They must have somehow thought themselves worthy. So, they had to ask their own version of the question:

“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”

Neither of the groups seemed to understand the ramifications of their actions. He had to explain it to both. There’s something about being human that makes us not get the divine perspective. All too often we take pride in the gifts God gives, mistake them as our own creations and bless others with our giftedness instead of humbly practicing, honing, serving in ways that point others not to our remarkable fingerprints on the things we touch, but pointing to the good and loving God who made us and uses us; how truly amazing that God uses his sheep to help others and turn their gaze to the Lord of heaven and earth, the Good Shepherd who tends and cares for every single one of us.

If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, God laughs.

If you are impressed with how much money you’ve amassed, or how many children you have, or your standing in the graduating class, or what school you just got admitted to, or everything else that matters to us and the thinking of culture and society, you might be surprised to hear the snickering and laughing from on high. We can’t help it; we  care about these and other things and achievements society values. For the most part, even those of us who have been washed in blood still find ourselves preoccupied with the cares of this life. Can it be that we forget what matters most or do we even know what does? Both the sheep and the goats asked the same question.

God is not impressed with what impresses us, and honestly, we are not naturally impressed with what impresses him.

He seems to be suggesting that the works that mattered the most, the ones with eternal consequence and most pleasing—I daresay even beautiful to God—were not things people did for organized religion or social structures or for themselves. Jesus was the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the incarcerated and the sick. Just the thought kind of spoils the mood.

This was not a political statement. Jesus was not judging the corrupt structure of the day though it was corrupt and did deserve judgement. But the blessings of the sheep were all about people.

Just before Jesus told this story, he told of the people using or not using their talents and the virgins who did or did not have oil in their lamps.

There Jesus goes again telling these stories that don’t make us feel good about ourselves. You know, the ones that shine light in those places where we don’t want people to see, the places where we ourselves don’t want to look.

Goats and sheep—neither group fully grasps the good or the bad they’ve done.

But here’s the thing. The goats he was talking to did grasp the message. Right after this, those goat people start to plot his death. They couldn’t bear to hear him and had to stop it.

We’ve just had a primary election, and in Illinois, when we went to vote, we had to declare who we were—donkey or elephant?

Many people are tempted to make a correlative between those voting box animals and the two animals God will separate us into. I think that’s a great danger because as humans, our evaluation of ourselves and the world is so not God’s. It would be so easy and natural for us if every elephant turns out to be a sheep and every democrat a goat—or the other way round. We live with eye logs. Thinking like this—it’s just how we are.

But it doesn’t have to be. When I get to the judgement according to this story Jesus told, I won’t get to say whether I’m a sheep or a goat. No, Jesus will decide and it will be too late for any of us to change things then. So, there’s this, this naked-hungry-homeless-stranger-thing that will say something to him about the end of all things.

But today, ah, today I can live like Jesus. I can run to it, not away. It doesn’t seem possible. Can this be real? But yes, we can follow him. I don’t know what that means for you. But I’d like to figure out what it means for me in relation to the people around me I don’t even see, but somehow, those people are Jesus. Maybe there’s no figuring it out, I mean, since all the people ask the “When did I do/not do” question; maybe it’s just for us to love Jesus without even realizing that’s what we’re doing.

My actions won’t make me a sheep. Only Jesus does that. There are so many ways that he works far above and beyond our imaginations when he performs the surgery on our souls. Suddenly we find ourselves in places we never dreamed, doing things beneath and below us, just as he did when he came to rescue us.

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” (Col.3:12) and then the garment of love wraps itself around our animal skins, slowly and gently or sometimes painfully quick and sharp. This is the grafted garment that turns and changes our skins from human to something else. We find to our surprise not the rough hair of goats but the warm and soft wool of sheep where our rough or soft skin used to be.

So, when heaven comes, even as it will come today, we don’t have to ask Jesus the question in the story. We have only to do what the Shepherd says and go where he tells us to go—little sheep, heads down to the ground, following, following, walking, doing, caring, loving, being who the Shepherd Word is making us to be. God help us. 

A-Wandering by Lorraine Triggs

As a product of Christian summer camps, I have a vast repertoire of camp songs stored away, ready to belt out at mostly inappropriate moments. An all-time favorite is the “Happy Wanderer,” which my cabinmates and I sang loudly and cheerfully as we hiked on the paths of a national forest in Michigan, clueless to what a mountain track was and what “Valderi, valdera” even meant.

I love to go a-wandering

Along the mountain track

And as I go, I love to sing

With my knapsack on my back

Val-deri, val-dera

Val-dera

Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

Val-deri, val-dera

My knapsack on my back

My ardor for wandering has cooled these days, especially with my current wandering in the wilderness of nagging doubt about an unresolved issue. Perhaps I did something wrong; otherwise, why wouldn’t God just swoop down and deliver me from this wilderness. No, it’s because I didn’t pray enough. Clearly, it’s my lack of faith that keeps me wandering in this wilderness.

In Women’s Bible Study, we just finished studying Daniel 6, Daniel in the lions’ den. During the large-group teaching time, Jenn Miller outlined the contrasts in the chapter between the law of God and the law of man, between deliverers and between the outcomes of faithfulness.

When we got to the contrast between the outcomes of faithfulness, Jenn said that there are two groups of the faithful in Hebrews 11, the much-loved Hall of Faith chapter. She read Hebrews 11:32-33: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.”

“We love this outcome of faith where God intervenes and delivers,” said Jenn. You go, Jenn, end the teaching on a high note; but then she let us down gently. “This is not the only outcome of faith.”  

Hebrews 11:36-38 describes in detail this second group who “suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

Jenn pointed out that all those who were miraculously delivered—and those who were not—were commended for their faith (see Hebrews 11:39) whether in the wilderness or a lions’ den. And she added, “Jesus fits better into the second group of the faithful.”

I read those verses again and the words such as “suffered,” “mocking” and “flogging” stand out. The awful truth was that Jesus could have saved himself; the Father could have removed the cup of suffering; Jesus could have been delivered from death, but he didn’t and he wasn’t. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that it was “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

As Jenn reminded us on that Wednesday evening, the reward of the faithful is deliverance from sin to righteousness, to eternal life, to the city whose maker and designer is God.

Celebrated saints and nameless wanderers, may we all be counted among those of whom the world is not worthy, and among those who know they are unworthy apart from the Worthy Lamb who was slain.

Castoff Cooking by Wil Triggs

Confession: I like to cook. Lorraine likes to cook. We take turns being the sous chef. It’s almost always sweet when Lorraine is head chef and meat when it’s me. Sides and salads are a tossup. This last year we discovered the joys of fried gnocchi and balsamic glaze, welcomed in the same meal, even if not on the same plate. Both are likely old news to a lot of you, but for us, eureka! Here are two new and easy things to cook and eat when we both get home from work.

Another confession: I read the New York Times. I’m still a Christian. Really.

One of the main reasons I read NYT is its cooking section. When the world seems like it’s going in the opposite direction from where I wish it were headed, and news of deaths and disasters begins to overwhelm, I can always scroll down to the cooking section to find something good to cook and eat or just to look at the photos or videos.

Sometimes there is a surprise in the Times. It could be someone talking about the meaning of life or faith, or articles about freedom or suffering or riots or bombs or crashes, but the other morning it was both meaning-of-life and food-related. The headline of Genevieve Ko’s latest caught my eye: “A Creamy Salad Dressing That Will Change Your Life.” She does have a tendency to spiritualize food, such as her “Pork Chile Verde Revives and Restores” first published on Halloween of last year, which means you could cook it in time for All Saints Day. Works for me!

Would I sell my birthright for a bowl of really good soup? Might I get a really good cook to make something I could pass off as my own to get a blessing even if it were trickery? And why are all the big holidays of the Old Testaments called “feasts”? I mean, celebrating pretty much demands food. There does seem to be a link between eating in community and something spiritual.

I don’t necessarily expect food to change my life, but I was curious. Fried gnocchi has been a game changer, and Ko’s gingerbread snickerdoodles or last summer’s favorite corn salad with basil and cilantro have become standbys. I like chili verde, a very comforting dish for me since my youth, and I have come to like ginger in almost anything. But the idea that food can change my life? What was this dressing?

So click I did. It turned out not to be a recipe at all, but a column about Japanese restaurants and chefs in the Los Angeles area who make liquidy dippy substances by mashing tofu with sesame seeds or honey or miso or something else. Ko did her best to make it sound transcendent but…

Not interested. I like protein with the flavor profile of bone and blood that comes with eating meat. Beans and rice, ok, but soy bean curd as life-changing?

I know good food isn’t only at Los Angeles gourmet spots from Japan. The same goes for people…the foolish to confound the wise. What about the bag of castoff vegetables and herb sprigs and skins and peels that I’ve been saving in the back of the fridge?  I can empty the bag into the crockpot, add water, cover and set on low, and the flavors of heaven and earth are released in the water, turning the clear liquid into a glorious red or gold or even brown. Amazing flavor emerges. The smell is the smell of home on a Sunday afternoon. You walk through the door and take a breath. Ahhh! I can relax.

Those scraps touch and change anything you make with them. Most people just throw that stuff away—just like so many people in the world seem forgotten and expendable.

I’m pretty much a nobody. I mean, I identify with the broth bag in the fridge. I still have flavor to give even though people might forget me for the exotic tropical fruit or the prime cut of beef or the organic grain-fed chicken. I’m celery leaves, carrot and onion skins, a few leftover mushrooms and whatever that other stuff is. (I think it might be the base of a garlic head, but I’m not sure.) Just dump it into the pot.

A frog goes into a pot of water. The heat comes on and it dies. Not me. Not us.

My Ukrainian friends have taught me that you don’t even need a beet to make borscht.

These castoffs that a lot of people would just throw away, they’re just getting started. There is no death here.

Brothers and sisters following Jesus in Pakistan or Iran or Ukraine or Russia, China or Nigeria or North Korea or Afghanistan—all of us there in the bag for the chef to use. Dump us into the pot filled with living water. We come to life—boiling, steaming—all the flavor God put into us is still there, coming out in the boil, flavoring the water into a beautiful base for all kinds of foods in the days to come. It all smells so mysteriously good. The cooking smell spreads everywhere.

What are you cooking? What’s that smell? I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I came through the door and smelled what you’re cooking. Now I can’t wait for a taste.

Lives that smell and taste good to God are not on the radar of the ways of man. Now that’s life-changing dressing!

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.  Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

Just Answer the Question by Lorraine Triggs

I am a terrible test-taker. In high school I approached every exam with high hopes that I would ace the exam, until I saw the multiple-choice questions with choices A, B, C or D—and things would go downhill from there.

I’d re-read the question, think, well, if the question said that; then A would be right. Or what if that happened, and then C would be right. Essay exams held more potential, until I would read the question and think, you’ve got to be kidding and proceed to explain the real point of the book. Any cajoling from the teachers to just answer the question that was being asked, to me, clearly showed a lack of imagination as I continued my defiant test-taking habits in college.

The most important question in life, however, is not multiple choice or even an essay. It’s the question the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their reply was straightforward: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31)

There is something, however, in rebellious test-takers like me—or just the plain rebellious—that wants to turn the jailer’s question into a multiple-choice answer.

Question 1—What must one do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus and

a. family

b. politics

c. education

d. success

e. all of the above

Scripture remains steadfast in its answer: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. So, why are we so steadfast in our attempts to add to our salvation? Part of me wants to blame the educational system that ingrained in us the mentality that hard work is rewarded with good grades, early acceptance to college and success in the real world. All this, however, sidetracks from our heart issue, our pride that gets in the way of the free gift of salvation. The true answer isn’t even on the test.

Question 2—The free gift of salvation is

a. not like the trespass

b. not like the result of one’s man sin

c. through one man’s act of righteousness

d. all of the above

Paul said it better than any of us ever will when he wrote, “because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Romans 5:17-18)

It’s the little word “all” that creates dissonance for, well, for all of us. To those who don’t believe, it’s hard to hear that all are sinners, all condemned. To those who believe, it’s hard to hear that God’s mercy is for all, all those “who-so-evers” who believe will be saved.

In a recent Bible study lesson, a question said to read Romans 11:33-36. Naturally, being the compliant, dutiful student that I am, I read verse 32: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”

Paul had no dissonance between condemnation and mercy because it always has been and always will be all God—not a result of our multiple choice answers lest any of us boasts that we aced the test, since we would all flunk it apart from his mercy.

Yes, I did read Romans 11:33-36—Paul’s lyrical doxology to God, rich in mercy, lavish in love, beyond our understanding.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
    or who has been his counselor?”
 “Or who has given a gift to him
    that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

All or Nothing by Wil Triggs

I am not a negative person. I am not motivated by criticism. And I think I’m not alone in wanting to focus on the positive. It is easy to think about how God made us and gifted us for unique contributions to the world around us. It’s really pretty amazing. When we develop these God-given gifts properly, those around us can benefit with time. We could possibly even become known for our skills and gifts. Give it our best and we might succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

But there are limits to all this positivity.

“To deny that life has its share of disappointments, frustrations, losses, hurts, setbacks, and sadness would be unrealistic and untenable,” writes Robert Emmons in an article published in The Atlantic during the COVID pandemic. “Life is suffering. No amount of positive thinking exercises will change this truth.”

So, no matter how much we develop the gifts God uniquely gave us, those things are not going to save our souls. God, who gave us these good gifts, loves those aspects of who we are, but they aren’t salvific. They cannot keep us from hard things.

Actually, it was the hardest things in their lives that brought nameless people to God in the gospels. They were desperate. Maybe we should consider being a little more desperate ourselves.

In the Bible, people often appear in their weakest, most troubled, imperfect states—the paralytic, the woman with the issue of blood, the man blind since birth, the beggar by the pool, the centurion with the dying son, the demon-possessed man, the dead little girl. We know them not by their names, but by their troubles.

And there are other people who were reviled just because of who they were—the Samaritan, tax collector, the prostitute, the Sadducee in the eyes of the Pharisee and the other way around, the people Jesus had dinner with that were not the right people. Others are identified by proximity to something else—the woman at the well, the man named Saul who held cloaks when the others murdered Stephen.

If people knew us by the weakest links in our chains, how would we be described?

The covetous woman.

The pornography-addicted man.

The man with the inoperable tumor.

The executive who can’t stop working.

The person suffering with something for which modern medicine has no cure.

The child abused for years.

The student with no friends.

The student ruled by his group of friends.

The person whose best friend is a chatbot.

The old people with no family to care for them.

The one who just lost a week’s wage betting away his earning.

The dad who has lost his way.

The mom who stopped caring.

The student who hates his life.

The single who longs for a spouse.

The newly married people who think they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their lives.

The list can go on and on. Each one of us has some sin or failure that we think might be about to swallow us whole. Fill in your blank. We all have at least one.

When we come face-to-face with our weakest links, we try hard to atone for our shortcomings. A person could spend a lifetime trying to overcome them. But nothing of eternal impact is to be done but to cry out, “Jesus of Nazareth have mercy on us.”

Jesus’ miracles lasted. They weren’t just to demonstrate that he was extraordinarily God. The woman with the issue of blood did not start bleeding again the next day. The demons that went into the pigs did not come back. But the people did not become sinless. They were never people without sin. He changes us for real. Holy hope has lasting power well beyond the messes we make, even the ones we keep making.

After Jesus ascended to heaven, I wonder if the people he healed were part of the early church. Did they tell firsthand stories of being healed by him? Surely Lazarus must have recounted his own resurrection, but what about the other nameless ones?

How can we bear witness to the miracles and the rescuing power of Jesus where zero percent of the credit for the good in us gets applied to us and all is given to him? Instead of being known for the weakest link in life, we can be known for the eternal link of grace between us and the Savior.

All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being’s ransomed pow’rs:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.

Love and Happiness this Valentine's Day

Who knew that all it would take to find happiness and love was a good set of social skills? I can only imagine the angst I would have been spared if I had known this in middle school on Valentine’s Day.

Catherine Pearson, a reporter who writes about families and relationships, titled a recent article for The New York Times, “What’s the Secret to Happiness? These Researchers Have a Theory.” (February 10, 2026) Pearson talked with Dr. Sonya Lyubomirsky, a leading researcher on the science of happiness, who co-authored the book How to Feel Loved with Dr. Harry Reis.

Pearson explained that research on love and happiness “has tended to focus on the love one feels for others. But in fact, Dr. Lyubomirsky and Dr. Reis argue in their book, what really makes us happy is how much love we feel coming back to us.”

To feel the love, the good doctors advise not to “focus your energy on trying to change anyone. Instead, change the conversations you’re having.”  They recommend becoming a better listener to help make the person feel loved. And if that doesn’t work, know when to throw in the towel.

Writes Pearson, “Of course, sometimes you can do your best to listen and be open, and the other person gives you zilch in return. If that’s the case—or if you are finding it challenging to muster genuine curiosity [in the person]—those are signs this isn’t the right relationship to invest a lot of effort and energy in.”

God loved us when we had zilch to return. I wonder if Paul was remembering his old hate-filled, self-righteous self when he wrote to the church in Rome, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) And then he was astounded all over again by this love when he wrote these lyrical words: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

God also loves us when we think we have a lot to bring to the table. He loves us when we are proud that we are not like those sinners out there—and we might not say this part out loud—but isn’t God lucky to have us. It’s when we come empty-handed to another table, simply set with a cup and bread, that we remember and are amazed all over again at the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love.

It’s a grace that God doesn’t need our relationship advice. If he did, he would have thrown in the towel a long time ago. Instead, his beloved Son picked up the towel and washed his followers’ feet, including one pair that would run off into the darkness of betrayal, and another to the despair of denial, and even then, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)

Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Wintergarden by Wil Triggs

In the shortest days of the year, very little grows. The tulip and the garlic that I planted in autumn are fast asleep. They could be dead for all I know. They are still buried. The temperature outside hovers in the teens, and those are the highs. I don’t even want to talk about the lows. Snow seems like it has a different crunch when it’s below zero as opposed to the kind I shovel when it heats up by twenty degrees but is still below freezing.

Words are the beloved garden sanctuary where I know and grow new things and try to make sense of hard things. Even and especially in the winter.

It was the first day of the school term. The children came to the school with bunches of flowers. That’s just what they do in that part of the world. Part holiday, part class, the first day is a kind of party. So, it wasn’t just an ordinary school day but a celebration of learning and new beginnings.

The men came all in black, faces covered, guns and ammunition slung over their arms like the old farm ladies in the market with their shopping bags. But there was no food in their bags, only the machinery and mechanics of death. The children would not be going home from school that day.

The whole world watched what happened. And then almost everybody forgot. We watched and we forgot. But God saw it all and never forgot a single moment.

Sowing. I cast the seed-words onto the paper, into snow or winter mud. There is work to be done in that garden—weeds to pull, plants to be moved, detritus to be raked or dug in. With sun and rain, plants grow, but yes, there is much to tend to and much to think about. For now, though, none of those warm weather activities are possible.

Will I plant from seed or go to the nursery to grow the plants I have in mind for the summer?

The sound of the blade whirring, hatred taking flight, softly whistling through the air, the sound like a song he could hear and learn and know by heart, having heard it so many times before, landing on his scarred and bleeding back because he was not what they wanted him to be—would never, could never know anything else but the rise and fall of the whipping branch that told him this was not the way. No! No more! So, after nine years, he ran back to his father and mother who saw only in his coming back the shame in his failure to be the monk they so badly wanted him to be because he never properly learned anything one needed to learn in the real world while he was failing in the monastery, the growing boy had to start school with children much younger than he. The teacher was kind to him. Maybe for the first time in his life, he could learn. He could breathe. John. Sixteen. Three. God. Loved so much. He gave…

Lorraine’s roses. Will they survive the heaving ice of winter? What of the aggressive rabbits—she’s projecting into spring—who seem to have taken to them like the latest green craze for their seasonal salad feast. And the lavender plants. Every year she watches over them, convinced that she has done something wrong and that they will not live. “They will die. This is the year they won’t make it,” she fears. We won’t know for sure until spring, I reassure her. And so far, every spring, green appears, stubbornly waking up as if to say “I am from the Mediterranean. But I’m growing in the Midwest. It’s going to be alright. There will be flowers.” 

When he took home the black-bound book, his father caught him reading it. “No,” his dad cried out in rage. What was wrong with his son? The dad cut a switch from a tree and made his own mark on the already scarred back. So, he left his father and mother. He did not know where to go. But the teacher took him on a moped to church. He had never before seen anything like it. The real singing. The real praying. The teaching, the love. This family found him, a whole church found him. He was home. He was free.

Seeds. In the warmth of my home, I take a small pot, fill it from the bag of potting soil, sprinkle some herb seeds on the top, add a little more soil, pour water on and wait. Will they sprout and take hold? This is the wonder of it. They will. Water, soil, seed, sun, time—poof—plants. Those little dried pieces that seem almost like nothing actually turn into plants. 

The senior class of the all-girls high school was singing with excitement. Dreaming of possibilities, each one had selected elegant clothes to wear for the events soon to come. All of those ended when the men arrived in a caravan of horror. The girls were taken away at gunpoint. Death was near, always near, or things worse than death—lives marked by captivity, exile, shame and the call to recant, renounce, revile what they loved.

Easy. Simplest plant on earth to grow. My friend is explaining to me how to grow potatoes. I have only tried once or twice and something didn’t work. All you have to do is take one and cut it into pieces. Make sure that each piece has an eye and put dirt over it. Some people cover with straw or mulch. As it grows, keep the plant covered. It wants to grow so badly you could grow one in a bag. “You’ll get the hang of it,” he says to me. “They will literally grow everywhere.” 

And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.”  Then all who believed were together and had all things in common. Then those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. Then there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” [Matthew 28; Acts 2; Acts 11; Acts 10]

God’s Word for us, to us—rescuing, saving—with us through everything, no matter what happens today, in this very moment, as I write and you read, sharper than any sword that might be wielded at us. Read on and find whatever you need for this day.