Trench Warfare by Lorraine Triggs

We checked our schedules. We were still good for dinner at 6 p.m.—two moms connecting after a busy day at a conference we were at with our husbands. The conversation started off with the usual niceties, and then took a serious turn as we circled then landed on the topic of our children.

I went first. My son is out of the house and not really following the Lord. She had asked a direct question about him, and I couldn’t figure out a way to dodge it.

My friend said that her oldest daughter switched colleges after COVID and is now enrolled at one closer to home.

We took the conversation to a deeper level as I confessed my son’s struggles with serious mental health issues for which he sees no need for help. Her youngest daughter, now graduating from high school, had been bullied throughout high school and sank into depression. She is slowly moving forward, but it is a hard road for her.

“I keep thinking back, trying to figure out where I went wrong as a mother,” I said, a bit let-down that my friend didn’t react to my comment right away. We continued our meal together.

Later, at the dessert bar, my friend referenced my feelings as a mom and responded. “I feel the same way,” she said softly as we chose our desserts from the dessert bar. “We mothers do.”

Sisters in the trenches is how another friend would describe us. Only my trench is here in Wheaton, in Winfield; her trench is in Lahore, Pakistan. Our dinner was in Siofok, Hungary, at the 2022 LittWorld conference. Our friendship is in Christ.

Our cultural differences enhance minds that are one in Christ despite our differences in culture and style. In friendship, we learn to love, different as we are from one another.

American Lorraine is direct and says whatever is on her mind; Pakistani Jingle is quiet and thoughtful in sharing what is on her mind. She takes time to share and chooses the next evening to tell me that her pastor has a son, a bit older than mine, who has the same struggles.

She gets it. Her pastor gets it. Now we are praying together for our children. We get it together. Had I plowed through the conversation, impatient for Jingle to respond like American me, I would have missed all this. I had to wait.

This probably explains why I cringe when someone says, “Oh, they’re perfect. They’re just like us. They fit right in.”

Other than the glaring theological flaw in that statement, what does it say about people who aren’t like us? You know, the imperfect ones over there, who don’t fit in? People who may not look like us or communicate the way we do?

Jesus’ mindset was all about loving and rescuing people who were not like him in some pretty fundamental ways.

In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus told the parable of the great banquet with its guest list: the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind (v. 13). Left off the guest list were friends, brothers, relatives or rich neighbors - not everyone on this list is like everyone else. The people on this list are not the ones we normally want to be around, but, I want to be on that list. Could it be that Jesus is describing me as one of the poor, crippled, lame or blind?

Let's learn to enjoy the differences now because I think the banquet ahead is going to be beautifully full of them.

A Telling Story by Wil Triggs

It can be awkward. Talking about yourself. I mean, I’m really not that interesting, am I? And frankly speaking, you probably aren’t either.

We’re just people.

Is it a surprise that the hardest stories to get people to do are the Eye Openers in worship and the I Believe stories in Connections. People love to listen to them or read them, as long as they are on the listening or reading side, not speaking or writing side.

Your story of faith isn’t really your story. Sure, it’s about you. And no one else can really tell it like you can, because it happened to you. But it’s not really about you, is it? It’s about Jesus saving you. It’s really about Jesus. Without him, there is no story at all.

Think about your story not as your own bio pic, but as an original story with Jesus at the beginning, middle and end. Here’s a bit of my story.

A long time ago, in a parking lot far, far away, no. This was before there even was a Star Wars.

I was sitting in the passenger side of the old blue Dodge with my brother-in-law. This car would one day become mine, but I didn’t know that then. It was his car, for jaunts to church or seminary or other errands, not the big family car we normally drove when we were all together. He stopped by his college for some reason, and I was with him. I can still smell the SoCal heat in that car mixed with a little dust and that recently turned-off car smell. We were talking.

If there was anyone on earth that I could trust to say these things to, it was him.

At that moment, I was the unhappiest I think I had ever been. I wanted to flee my home because of my dad’s drinking. Things got better, but I didn’t know that then. I didn’t want to make my parents feel bad or leave my school, but I couldn’t see a way out. So on weeks when school was out, I fled to the homes of other family members.

I don’t remember what I said in the car, but we ended up talking about the nature of the cosmos. It was an admittedly roundabout way to address my situation. He explained to me how protons and neutrons were charged. They were opposite. They should move away from each other instead of somehow being attracted, somehow holding together.

I didn’t get it. What did any of that mean? Was the point that, at its core, the universe itself was some kind of contradiction? Maybe it was just some bizarre mystery that didn’t quite make sense. Just like my unhappy life. I sound like a whiner, I know, but I was somewhere in my teens when this happened.

I looked out the window and stopped talking.

Then he handed me a Bible opened to Colossians and asked me to read Colossians 1:17 out loud. I took the Bible from him, looked down, and with the sun shining through the windshield onto the page, I read:

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together,” I said.

This verse is easily read over in the longer passage, but for me all those years ago, there was a different kind of charge in those words. The living Word was starting to do something.

If Jesus was holding every together—in terms of science, yes, but not only that. If Jesus is holding together the universe, if he is in every particle, then even in my hard situation, he was right there. Even in every scary moment now, I was not and am not alone.

If there was anyone on earth that I could trust to say these things to, it was the third person in that car with us. The One who could help me hold it together. The One who loved me even then and he loves me now. How can the story go untold?

You have one, too.

Scattered Clothes by Lorraine Triggs

My Jewish-turned-Christ-follower mother incorporated a lot of her upbringing into bringing up my sisters and me. By far, our favorite was no work on the Sabbath, which we translated to no chores from Saturday evening to Monday morning. Our shared space became a wilderness for clothes and shoes—neither making their way to closets or dressers. Our beds were unmade, our homework buried under the piles of clothes. We knew that our room had to regain a semblance of order come Monday morning, but that didn’t stop us from throwing clothes on the floor.

I thought about my childhood wasteland the other day as I read one of the gospel writer’s accounts of Jesus’ last few weeks on earth. There’s a lot of mention about clothes and cloaks on the ground or floor or in and out of tombs.

There’s Lazarus, the dead man who came out of the tomb, hands and feet still wrapped with strips of linen, even though his sister Martha warned everyone of their bad odor. When Jesus instructed those at the tomb to take off his grave clothes, I suspect Lazarus dumped those rotting clothes on the ground without a second thought. Time for some new clothes.

And then there’s Jesus. He shrugged off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist and picked up a basin of water. In another wardrobe change, Jesus wears a crown of thorns and a purple robe. Oddly enough, he didn’t shrug off this robe or crown nor even denounce the cries for his crucifixion.

All this leads to graveclothes again—Jesus’ graveclothes. We watch Joseph and Nicodemus—the former a secret disciple, the latter a night visitor to Jesus—carefully, gently, wrap the dead man’s body with strips of linen and 75 pounds of myrrh and aloe. Did Joseph weep when he gave the fragrant spices for burial? As he prepared this lifeless body for burial, did Nicodemus recite the Teacher’s words to him, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Death is a strange way to bring about forgiveness and eternal life.

Ezra Klein, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, made this observation in a recent opinion piece: “What I, an outsider to Christianity, have always found most beautiful about it is how strange it is. Here is a worldview built on a foundation of universal sin and insufficiency, an equality that bleeds out of the recognition that we are all broken, rather than that we must all be great. I’ve always envied the practice of confession, not least for its recognition that there will always be more to confess and so there must always be more opportunities to be forgiven.”

Yes, Mr. Klein, this is beautiful and strange. But it's something much greater than worldview.

One dead man is called out of the tomb and lives; one dead man enters the tomb, and we live.

One man is free from rotting clothes with their stench of death; the other takes on the stench of sin and death, enters the rotting wilderness of our souls, and exchanges our rot for his righteousness and we are free from sin’s penalty.

A tomb is a strange place to find linen cloths scattered about and a face cloth for the dead, folded up by itself. Indeed, this empty tomb is a strange place for the fragrance of spices to linger long after three days. The reality of those odors remind us that he really did die. He put on the cloths of death. But then he took them off and left them on the floor of the tomb for all to see.

The One who was dead is risen, ascended, interceding, living in and with us now and forevermore.

A Palm Sunday Prayer - from A Pastor Prays for His People by Wendell C. Hawley

Christ our God, Prince of Peace,
Who on this day did enter the rebellious city midst shouts of “Hosanna,”
Enter our hearts and subdue them entirely unto you.
Rule over us in all the concerns and circumstances of our lives:
the work of our hands and the whims of our hearts;
the ambition of our dreams and the sins of our desires;
the experience of our friendships and our secret thoughts toward others.

Save us from the hypocrisy that sings “Hosanna” in the temple and cries
“Crucify him” in the marketplace of daily business.
Save us from the sham that praises with lips, but betrays you in our deeds.
Save us from the treason that boasts loyalty in the upper room and then makes cowardly denial in the judgment hall.

Lord, grant that as you look over us in this moment,
You will not weep as you did riding into Jerusalem on that momentous day.
Grant that every person in this place of worship will want you as king of their lives,
as sovereign monarch in every relationship.
May each of us in reverence and adoration truly say,
“Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

We pray that the day will speedily arrive when, in your glorious return,
every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess
that you are Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen

The Call of Calligraphy by Wil Triggs

When I was in eighth grade, I got sick and missed a lot of school.

As I recall it, my interests in running fast and playing music fell away as I was mostly stuck in bed at home. Boring. My mind wasn’t sick (at least, no more than usual) and I wasn’t sleeping all the time, but I didn’t know how long my recovery would be, plus the problem kept coming back. It wasn’t just a one-shot deal.

What to do? The teachers sent home assignments, but those didn’t take long. I listened to the radio. I read. But mostly I remember a little calligraphy kit and creating my own alphabets with it. The kit had a fountain pen, writing paper and instructions explaining the thick and thin, ebb and flow of the ink onto the writing paper. I copied the chart of letters to make the sample alphabet.

Once I mastered that, I was off into the creation of my own styles of letters, a little eighth-grade font foundry, except that I didn’t know what a font was. I practiced my name in different styles, trying to make my own version of the fancy signatures on the poster of the Declaration of Independence I had purchased on a trip to visit family members in New England. I would take a blank page of paper and fill it with letters to show feelings: joy, fear, funny, serious, sad. Every letter of the alphabet became interesting and challenging—how to make a “t” that conveyed more than just a “t.”

Hot black tea with sugar and a piece of buttered cinnamon toast helped fortify the experiment in exploring the alphabet, sustaining me to concentrate between meals.

Every letter became a friend as I concentrated on making each one just right.

Years later when I learned about the Cyrillic alphabet I thought back on this time. How much I would have enjoyed some of the beautiful and exotic letters that only exist in Cyrillic and not the Roman alphabet—their equivalents of "D" and "F," their yuh and yah and zheh letters, just describing them in such succinct ways seem, well, if not criminal, just base. I wished the eighth-grade me could have known about them and tried my hand at those letters as well.

Back then, in my unadorned efforts to fill my sick days, I started to experiment with the Roman letters I did know to help them take on different personalities or feelings. I found that each letter had its own challenges. And then putting letters together into words seemed a most magical exercise.

Don’t get me wrong. I was no Timothy Botts. I was just a sick kid trying to fill his day. Slowly becoming more confident, I found ways to put letters together, to connect them in a single flow of ink.

The combination of letters lined up next to one another meant that I began to discover words in a new way. Suddenly every word seemed magical and alive. It became interesting to me how individual letters lined up next to each other made new words. It’s obvious, words that start with the same letter change depending on what letters follow and in what order.

The letter “L” brings the words love, lonely, lion, Lorraine.
The letter “P” begins peace, power, patience, Paul, Pauline.

Pear is different from pair. Consider sparing, soaring, staring, string, sting, sing, sin.

People are like letters. Our association with one another can change things dramatically. Wil is not the same as Wil and Lorraine. Our small group is different when it’s Mary, Kathy, Mark, Julia in contrast to Ann, Vera, Rebecca, Paul, Liita, Mark, Julia, John. We were a different church with the four Ukrainian pastors on February 20 than the week that followed. And it wasn’t just the four pastors from Ukraine—it was all who were present on those distinct days. Every worship gathering is like that—distinctly blessed and unique—a different eternal word from any other gathering. It is perhaps most obvious with people as opposed to letters when we consider death and birth. Imagine if the letter “b” died—never to be used again. When we lose people, it’s like we’ve lost a letter. But we also get new people, too. Newborns and visitors and guests—new letters to add to our alphabet. Absence and presence of people determine the full meaning of each service just as the presence or absence of letters change the meaning of words.

We need each other to be the church. Your presence and mine changes everything. So, come. I want to see you. It won’t be the same if you stay in bed or go to the festival or game or store. Sometimes it can't be helped, but church is different when we’re physically part of it.

Of course, no discussion like this in relation to church can just stop there. We need to consider and remember and probably even start with the one word that is the cornerstone that makes us church as opposed to a cult or social club or fraternal order of nice people getting together to help each other.

J-E-S-U-S. Those five letters will go up on our pillars as the Easter banner (picking up the new “S” this week). But every week we lift them up. All five letters put together in that order spell out his name. The Word. Our gathering says, “He is here, alive and above and below and at work, standing alongside us.” How can we not gather and sing? Our association with him, coming to him, recognizing his presence right now in this moment, falling down before him, letting him engage and control and change and create in us and through us something new and better that somehow lasts forever.

“… I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:12b-17)

Sign Language by Wil Triggs

We need a new "S," I texted.

Most people wouldn’t know what I was talking about. But when I messaged Victor that we needed that, he knew exactly what that meant and stopped by the church. We talked.

We have five large banners that spell out J-E-S-U-S that we hang at the entrance of the church for Easter. Problem is, for some reason, the stormy winds of spring have done a number on one of the five letters. Why only one of the five banners was affected is hard to say.

I showed him the wind-damaged banner and he took it. No problem, he said. It doesn’t work to spell out Jesus if we’re missing an “s.”

Wait, I said to him, before he had a chance to leave. “How are you doing?” I said it in a way to be clear that it wasn’t just the pleasantry sort of question.

He stopped and looked at me. Everything is good, he said. But then he told me of his pain and the radiation and the ongoing dialysis. I assured him of my prayers and thanked him.

And that was the last time I saw Victor Covarrubias. Just a few days later, he went to be with Jesus. Considering all that his body has endured for the last few years battling cancer, I guess it wasn’t a surprise. But it still felt like one. Victor was always so positive about life no matter what.

Victor understood the power of signs. He named his company “Signs and Wonders” because he knew the “wonder” element of signs. I think it was also a form of witness in his sign business. Through the years, it was my joy to collaborate with him on signs for the church. He would come with ideas of how to do the best sign, where to place a sign, how to make it most legible or attractive. And his commitment to serving in STARS was right up there with his commitment to helping us with our signage. So there was a giant surfboard sticking out of the grass, telling people they could come to a special event. I’ll always remember the Goliath he made for Kindergarten Bible School with a hole where I could put my head to become the angry Philistine. And when he made the signs for Tuesdays Together, how often I would walk out of church to find him out deciding where the best places were for them to be placed for people driving by.

But what if the real signs aren’t made of vinyl and sticking in the ground? What if the real signs are us?

More than the signs he worked so hard on, Victor himself with Jesus at the helm was the real wonder—always encouraging and wanting to make a difference for the kingdom, always wanting to be part of telling people about Jesus, always ready to serve where there was a need.

And he’s not the only one.

You, dear friend, are God's own work of wonder.

• The woman who walks into Commons Hall, not knowing anyone, but wants to study the Bible.

• The freshman students who serve in Kindergarten.

• The new people coming to prayer group.

• The couple who talk about their family's struggle with mental illness and God's goodness all in one breath.

• All of us coming together in song and prayer and community to hear God's Word and give praise and thanks to Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

• All of us today with the people God brings along our way.

God's wonder of grace in our lives are signs to those we touch. Isn’t it amazing that God uses people—flaws, sicknesses, imperfections not withstanding—to point others to the mercy and love of Jesus.

A person came into the church asking for prayer for a seriously ill family member. After talking and praying with her it became clear to the pastor that she was not a Christian. So he talked her through the gospel and asked if she wanted to receive Christ. She said yes. He proceeded to lead her in prayer again to confess her sin and entrust her life to Jesus and to discover the wonder of grace for the first time.

Signposts pointing to Jesus in big and little ways.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Unforced Rhythms of Grace by Stephen Rigby

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace [Emphasis added] I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

My wife, Karis, recently said, "I am learning to pray for strength not only to do what I need to do but also to be okay with all that I cannot do." Margins are not high in this season of little ones and family sicknesses, losses in our family and community, and other shifting sands of transition have taken us to a place where we simply cannot get everything done. So what to do? I often have a tendency to want to just keep going, desperately trying not to let anything drop so I endure late nights and early mornings. And while there are seasons that I can function this way, the current pace of this is not sustainable to me right now. We ended the year tired and in want of rest, yet God has brought us into other seasons of heightened care for others.

So Jesus' words in this passage are an encouragement, a prayer, and a seemingly allusive hope. I am encouraged by Jesus’ simple invitation to come to him. Find rest in him. That he will teach and guide as I learn from his example. I am drawn into the life of Jesus in these verses. I marvel at the way he still loved people so well when he was tired. Whether it is the woman at the well in John 4 or the many ways you see him looking at the cares of others on his way to cross, when his life was squeezed, love poured out. This encourages me that in my limited capacity he is also pouring out love for me as he shows me the unforced rhythms of grace.

This is also a prayer. I am acutely aware of how desperate I am for God to show up. I pray for healing for friends and family that are going through deep sorrows, I pray for provision for those who have exceeding needs that we cannot meet, I pray for grace upon grace for my children as I hear my tone come out harsh toward them at the end of a long day. God, have mercy and teach me … I need help!

And yes, this passage also speaks of a hope … to live freely and lightly. Can this really be? I feel the weight of so much of the brokenness that surrounds me, yet these words are such a deep longing in my heart. God, can this be true? Can one live freely and lightly while knowing the deep wounds of loved ones? In a season where we have experienced many losses I see glimpses of his light shining through. In a meeting with our Ambassadors team the other week one of our staff, Samson, was talking about some of the hardships that he has witnessed within our office community and then, in a turn of a word, he asked a question about God’s purpose and whether these hard things were preparing us for something we had not imagined before. In that moment I felt a flame of hope light inside me. My gaze shifted from the brokenness and onto my heavenly Father who knows me, loves me and is with me always. In that moment, I was free and light.