Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

A meditation for Thursday of Holy Week. I wrote this as a part of our church's weekly encouragement during the time that we are apart. This is Holy Week. On Sunday we watched Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, welcomed like a king, a much anticipated hero. As the week continued we saw him healing many, making parables from fig trees, and clearing the temple of those who sought a profit there. Embarrassed followers and skeptics watched as a woman dropped in on a dinner party and poured oil over Jesus's head, "preparing me for my burial," he explained, perhaps bringing up more questions to the bewildered and disgusted guests.  The plot against Jesus had been coalescing day by day, and so we find ourselves at Thursday--often called Loving Thursday when Jesus, "having loved his own who were in the world, now showed them the full extent of his love." (John 13:1) There's one disciple that we can zoom in on, and in fact his antics and qu...

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. . .We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Romans 8:18, 22-24 Late teenage years— I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, my hand fidgeting with the blue bedspread bedecked with peach and pink flowers. My mom sits at the foot of the bed. I'm puzzling over this passage from the book of Romans that I'm sure I've read before, but is suddenly vivid. Life has gotten scarier. My older brother Tim is down the hall at the other end of the house, his arm in a cast and other bones still healing—his pelvis among them. He'd done something stupid—aided by alcohol, the urging of friends, and his own ri...