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Erica Galindo
Celebrating Food, Faith and Family
Last edited on: April 19, 2014.

It’s all looked a little impossible lately. It’s more than the lists, and the mail stacks, and the bulging inboxes, and the deadlines. Yes, there are plenty of all those.

But there’s more: people we love are hurting. And we are hurting with them. Friends are staring down mean diagnoses and long roads and uncertain tomorrows.

Our 11-year-old daughter, Lydia, knows some of it because she reads the back of our church bulletin, with its long list of typed prayer needs. She hears my sides of phone conversations, and she reads newspaper headlines over my shoulder. At night, when the moon rises outside her window, we talk about the trouble in this world. She pulls up the covers under her chin.

I can tell by the quiver in her voice that she feels like life has had handed out one too many lemons.

“It all looks so … impossible, Mom.”

And sometimes, she admits, it makes you want to give up praying. I nod my head in the dark, because I’ve felt in my gut what she’s trying to put words to.

But I told her right then: When you want to throw in the towel, throw your problems on a nail instead.

Which is what we did — and what we do, every night and every morning and every noon. We pray together, tossing our worries on Calvary nails.

That night, I tucked her in, then walked out of her room in the dark, and stepped squarely onto the truth with my right foot. I stepped onto a tiny spike — long lost from our set of Easter resurrection eggs. It poked into my heel. The sharp spike had been buried for months in the deep carpet fibers of her bedroom. (That says a lot about my vacuuming regimen around here, but it says even more about God’s timing.)

Right in the dark, the truth hit me hard.

Three nails did the hardest work, rescuing us from our Eden-rooted past, giving us hope for our present, and eternally securing our futures.

And just think: our Risen Savior didn’t leave us as orphans. He filled us with His Holy Spirit, so that we could accomplish “even greater things.” (John 14:12)

In Christ, nothing is impossible. And as the Body of Christ, we are a part of Team Possible.

For every affliction, restriction, addiction or bit of friction in your life, there is one holy benediction: “It is finished.”

Through Christ and His church, the unimaginable becomes imaginable.

The impossible becomes possible.

God knows the unknown, and sees the unforeseen.

He holds all things together, and fastened Himself to a tree as the greatest exclamation mark on the greatest act known to humankind.

Wherever you’re going, He is already there.

“He took it away, nailing it to the cross.” ~ Colossians 2:14

 

 

 

Jennifer Dukes Lee used to cover crime, politics, and natural disasters as an award-winning news journalist in the Midwest. Now, Jennifer uses her reporting skills to chase after the biggest story in history: the redemptive story of Christ. She blogs at www.JenniferDukesLee.com. Soon, her words will make their way into her debut nonfiction Christian book, Love Idol: Letting Go of Your Need for Approval – and Seeing Yourself through God’s Eyes. She and her husband live on the Lee family farm in Iowa with their two daughters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7 Responses

  1. Kelly Greer

    Jennifer, I needed to hear this again and again…..when the world’s troubles seem so big, and we feel like throwing in the towel we can rest assured that when Jesus said, “It is finished”, it is. He is already there in the present suffering and making all things new. We place our hope in him because he is our hope! Thank you for always pointing us to the work of the cross and the hope of Jesus resurrected!
    Amen!
    Kelly

    Reply
  2. Michele-Lyn

    Amen and amen! “Three nails did the hardest work, rescuing us from our Eden-rooted past, giving us hope for our present, and eternally securing our futures.”

    I cannot wait until your book comes out! You are a beautiful writer, and you have the most beautiful heart. I love the way you love God and His people. <3

    Reply
  3. Shelly Miller

    Lovely to see you in this “new to me” place on the web Jennifer. Yes and amen to this encouraging truth, may we always remember to cast our cares on the nails that hold our redemption. He makes all things new, even now.

    Reply
    • Muhammad Imran

      The lighting of candles as sunset approaches on Friday is the traditional sign of the arrival of Shabbat Prayer .In households with children, it is traditional to offer a special blessing on Friday night after candle-lighting. There are two versions, one for boys and one for girls.

      Reply
  4. karyn

    O that nail on JESUS’ left hand. Now and again. Just now and again. JESUS brings me back to that place. And I hold HIS hand again. When I go for healing at HIS feet, I touch the nail that pierced both HIS feet and as the BLOOD of the Lamb flows …. it runs all down my arm. My right arm.
    JESUS and me, we are one. ( to share in HIS suffering )
    HE does not need me. I need HIM. Mind boggling this.

    Reply

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