Quote of the Week

If God can bring blessing from the broken body of Jesus and glory from something that's as obscene as the cross, He can bring blessing from my problems and my pain and my unanswered prayer. I just have to trust Him.  --Anne Graham Lotz

Have you ever thought about the fact that the cross is a gross torture device? We are so used to churches being adorned with them, and with people adorning themselves with them, that we sometimes forget that we are wearing the device that has been used to put to death thousands, perhaps even millions of people in the past. Imagine wearing a guillotine around your neck! How interesting that we have been able to turn something, which for hundreds of years symbolized death and cruel suffering, into a symbol of hope, identity, and salvation.

Personally,  I am not the biggest fan of crosses. I feel that too much emphasis is put on the death of Jesus and not the resurrection of him. The truely amazing thing about Christ is not that he died, but that he overcame death to rise again. Instead of crosses, perhaps we should wear the stone which was rolled away from his tomb? :)

In the same way that we see something as gruesome as the cross being transformed into a symbol of hope, we need to pray that the horrors in our own lives will, somehow, be transformed for good. Perhaps this horrible thing will be able to remind me of the mightiness of my holy God? Perhaps it is just something to beat me down enough so that I may lose my ego and cling to him? I don't know, but I do know that when I remember how the horrors of the cross were transformed into a beautiful symbol, I can think that my issues and my pain can perhaps be transformed too.