Holy Week!... Shouldn't we just call it Holy Year?! God works everyday in our lives in so many miraculous ways that we don't have enough sense receptors to take it all in. I'll begin by saying that I am blessed to be part of God's hand moving in Cali through all of the people connected to Sonshine. Is it possible to have that "camp-high" after 48 hours? I think so; I've got it!

This entry is scatterbrained at best, however, the more I try to correct its un-grammatical state the worse it gets. So here is the stream of consciousness that is my devotional response:


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I find myself to be a doubting Thomas sometimes. Even though I am firm in my faith, I am still shaken sometimes. Frequently I am racked by tough shifts at work; difficult days of class and the broken lives of friends and family - its hard to keep God on top.

When I was a camper, age 7, with a group in Estes Park, Colorado called Covenant Heights I was enlightened to this principle. My counselor wore a nut on a piece of cord around his neck... like the nut you find with bolts in the hardware store. For the week that we were up there, our leader never told us why he wore it even  though we asked many times. We'd ask and he'd just put up a quirky smile and move on.

We found it odd that this would be the necklace of a youth leader instead of say-a cross! Finally, on the last day he told us that it was reminder to him to keep God on top in his life. That little nut symbolized a much larger one found on the very top of helicopters. He told us that in Vietnam when his father had served as a pilot, they would call it their 'Jesus-Nut' because without it, the craft wouldn't fly. He said that by constantly reminding himself that God was on top and the most important part of his being he would be able to walk in the light. In this way I am Thomas because I cry out to God and say: "I don't know how to reach you."

                                 .......... His response: Foolishness.

I don't remember the name of my counselor, or what he looked like, the activities we did at camp etc... but I do remember that message to me, to keep God on top! Now I wear one too.

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I was moved by the colorful words, syntax and diction used by the author to illustrate the passover so beautifully in this weeks devotional. I began to see Jesus's struggle through His eyes. He was losing his friends, "he was going to lose his father" [page 12] just as I had. I know the torment and anguish of being left by the man you trust the most to find your own way....

Additionally, this passage particularly stuck with me because I was asked to be part of our 'stations of the cross' with my church. I was to create the seventh station: this is where Christ, broken and shattered, drawn-out and unable to move any further is physically broken by the burden of the cross and is drug up the rest of Calvary hill by the Roman soldiers. I spent a long time trying to embody the humanity of Jesus in my station.

However, I came to understand that Jesus was broken only in form. His body of some 300+ bones, some percentage of water and minerals, with systems and functions I take for granted, was his cage. Its true: Jesus could have ended this passion, He could have removed Himself from the cross, He could have stopped armies; but like most fathers to us and son of His father, He need us to see his sacrifice, His pain, His blood, sweat and manly-tears for OUR sins!

I like to think that the people understood by the end- like a great novel when the pieces fall into place at the end- just what Jesus had done for us. I like to think that they understood his passing - that through his crucifixion he had saved us. A father's sacrifice for Us, because he is following His fathers plans.

I think they did.

I think that the soldier responsible for saying this: "Truly, I tell you, this is the Son of God." actually got it.

Can you imagine what was going through this soldiers mind; after you just killed your brother/father/parent who had come to save you?! This is like Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, destroying his dad's car after driving it through the window on the second story garage. "OH MAN! What have I done? I'm going to get it now." 


I was relieved to know that I am just as human. That when I make mistakes, God forgives them - that he already has before I make them. I hope that I can be just as important for students this summer as my counselor was for me. We are always growing with Christ and just when I think that I'm closer to God than before, he says:

                                                                                   ................. Foolishness

He will always be with us, he will always be with we scared Doubting Thomas', he will never abandon us because God payed that price with His son on Our cross.



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May the Faith be with you, always.


Doubting Blake