Bruised and Broken

Sunday morning, my shoulders were purple.

Saturday, while some members of our church went to the Habitat for Humanity build, a few of us (and I do mean few - 4 adults, 1 teenager, and 1 young girl) worked at the church getting the Stations of the Cross trail ready for Lent. Behind my church, there is a nature trail with the Stations of the Cross. It is available all year for prayer and meditation, but every Friday during Lent, we walk the trail together and do the service and pray. The trail was originally a young man's Eagle Scout Project. Of course, he grew up as young men do, and left us this beautiful place that occasionally needs maintenance. And I am grateful to do it.

For my Baptist and other evangelical friends who are not familiar with the Stations of the Cross, it is a devotion attributed to St. Francis of Asissi and the Franciscans who would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem to trace the steps of Jesus from his sentencing to Calvary praying and meditating along the way. After a while, churches all across Europe began building stations in the cathedrals for those who were too poor, weak, or afraid of the bandits along the way to make the trip to Jerusalem. The traditional way has 14 stations, the last station being Christ laid in the tomb. Ours has 15 stations, the last station being the Resurrection, without which the rest would have just been tragic.

For me, the physical labor of renovating the trail is a great start to the Lenten season. We hauled in 200 landscape timbers on our shoulders and hauled out the old, rotted ones. As I could feel the bruises forming on my shoulders, I thought about how much worse my Savior's shoulders must have felt, bruised and bleeding, and carrying a cross much, much heavier than one landscape timber and knowing there was much worse to come.

And He did it freely because of His love for us.

His sacrifice makes my bruises look silly.

And while readying the trail for worship is a noble deed, the sacrifices God requires of us are much more serious. He expects us to give every moment, every thought, every intention, and every action to His direction. We are to join His Kingdom and to show the world His Love every minute of the day. We are to be unafraid, unashamed, and unabashedly His children.

Regardless of what others say, think, or do to or about us, we are His, bought by His sacrifice, cleansed by His blood, and marked as His own.

anything but typical


Jesus, I my Cross Have Taken
by Henry F Lyte, 1824

Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition, all I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still mine own.

Let the world despise and leave me, they have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me; Thou art not, like them, untrue.
And while Thou shalt smile upon me, God of wisdom, love and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me, show Thy face and all is bright.

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! Come, disaster, scorn and pain!
In Thy service, pain is pleasure; with Thy favor, loss is gain.
I have called Thee, “Abba, Father”; I have set my heart on Thee:
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather, all must work for good to me.

Man may trouble and distress me, ’twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me; heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm me while Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to charm me, were that joy unmixed with Thee.

Take, my soul, thy full salvation; rise o’er sin, and fear, and care;
Joy to find in every station something still to do or bear:
Think what Spirit dwells within thee; what a Father’s smile is thine;
What a Savior died to win thee, child of heaven, shouldst thou repine?

Haste then on from grace to glory, armed by faith, and winged by prayer,
Heaven’s eternal day’s before thee, God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission, swift shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope soon change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.