Finish Strong

Holy Week is upon us. I can’t believe how fast this Lenten season has come and gone.

Maybe not giving up sweets this year helped. The weeks didn’t drag on as visions of neglected M&M’s danced in my head.

We aren’t traveling anywhere for Easter this year, so I won’t have to deal with my angst over how to spend Good Friday when on the road, away from home. You know what I’m talking about?

The times when you focus and commit to filling the weeks of Lent with prayer, self-denial, radical giving, and purposeful turning away from sin only to have that time culminate on Good Friday in an environment far from the somber and focused weeks leading up to it. Whether it’s visiting family out of town or a family get away somewhere warm, it poses a challenge. The challenge to remain steadfast in our faith. To finish strong.

One year we were invited to spend Easter weekend with close friends out of town. At noon on Good Friday I felt such a pull to somehow acknowledge that this wasn’t just another day. The beauty of the sunshine and the blue ocean was lost on me. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it but I knew I had to do something, so I told everyone I needed to just be alone for a bit and went for a walk to have time away to grieve and recall what Jesus did for me, for all, that day.

I think about that day every year as we enter this holiest of weeks. I wonder each year if I would have the courage to do things differently if faced with that same situation now. If I would be bolder in my witness, actually let others know how much I love Jesus, and need to acknowledge the depth of His love for me.

I think I would.

I know I could and you could too, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Wherever Good Friday finds you, call on the Holy Spirit to enliven in you a boldness and a steadfastness in faith. Be a witness to those around you of what a life opened up to the love and mercy of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus, looks like.

Take the cross to the conversation.

Joan

Truth Be Told Video – Session 3, Week 3

Truth Be Told
Session 3, Week 3
Steadfast in the Spirit
Acts 4:1-22 Peter and John before the Sanhedrin
Acts 5:27-39 Persecution and Imprisonment
Acts 7:54-8:3 Martyrdom of Stephen