TGIF: Good Friday

What I'm Trusting:
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand!
All other ground in sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, his covenant, his blood
support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand!
All other ground in sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

What I'm Grateful for:
That though I am fickle and an emotional roller coaster, Jesus is steady.  This week in Wednesday Bible study, our story was a contrast in Peter and Jesus, as this awful day approached.  Peter is all over the board emotionally, but Jesus knows where has come from and where he is going.  He knows this is his hour.  And he is steadily heading toward it.

There is a moment in that story, when Peter cuts off a guard's ear, that Jesus says, "Did you think for one minute I would not do what my Father planned?"

These days, I'm an emotional roller coaster myself.  And so I'm grateful that Jesus is steady and always steadying me.  In the course of any given day, I feel like it/don't feel like it, step up/back down, change my mind.  I'm grateful Jesus did not change his.  He went to the cross, no turning back, which is why we remember on Good Friday.

What Inspires me:
New life, which is everywhere in all forms.  Green sprouting up everywhere.  And, of course, resurrection.

Just the other day I had a wonderful conversation with a friend who is getting married.  I got to listen to her hopes and dreams, her fears, to consider with her what a wonderful and terrifying thing it is to begin a new life with someone.

I'm inspired by the new life Ben Worley is building for himself as a young adult on his own.  How brave he is with his many talents, like this new podcast The Lemonade Stand.

I'm inspired by good friends Jim and Lisa Baker, who are beginning a new life after retiring from amazing years of church leadership.

What's Fun:
Today Matt sent us this picture of him playing Thomas in the King of Kings Easter passion play. This picture makes me happy on so many levels.  Remembering Brentwood Baptist Easter pageant rehearsals, when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus and the disciples shot them with water squirt guns.  Remembering hours putting together all those costumes with Mildred Hoppe, standing knee deep in fabric scraps.  Remembering the year Matt was 3, when he played a tiny Aladdin-like king in the parade of Wise Men.  Knowing that he is celebrating this Easter in South Africa, celebrating in a church that is a s dear to us at Brentwood Baptist. Knowing that all over the world this weekend believers will dress up in Biblical garb or Sunday best, sing loud, get up with the dawn to celebrate the truth that Christ is risen and we have new life in him.

Happy Easter!