Writing has been an integral part of my therapy. I sincerely hope not everyone has had to have therapy. I guess at some point in one single life the question of why comes up. Why is not always a prerequisite for therapy, but I’d imagine there’s not a soul who hasn’t asked why something happened or didn’t happen.

If there was no resistance in life there’d be no need for celebration. As a Christian every Sunday for me is significant. Well, everyday is significant, but Sundays are set aside for Christians to remember the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. My particular denomination takes communion every Sunday because our study has led us to believe that the first century church did it that way. It was actually instituted on a Thursday night in an upper room in Jerusalem, so Sunday is not the only day I personally believe you can break bread and drink wine. Every time I take unleavened break and drink grape juice or wine I am proclaiming the reality of Jesus’ sacrifice to pay for my sin debt. Not everyone believes this. Some people think Jesus was just a great man, but I believe He was at one time a man just as I am now, but he was fully God at the same time. God solved our sin problem by placing all of mankind’s sin upon Jesus, and when the gift of the Holy Spirit comes upon us we can know the love that drove Jesus to the cross and drove the Father to raise His son to conquer death.

It’s about relationship, trust, unconditional love and being known. When we get Jesus right we get church right. When we get Jesus right we get family right. Being right is important to all of us, but Jesus is the only one who got it. He knows the paradox of what it means to be in the world but trying to accomplish the will of the Father.

He’s been where each one of us has been, and even when his anguish was greatest he did not call 72,000 angels to deliver him. He could have. He didn’t. He followed through with what was the single most important piece of work that has ever or will ever be done for those who place their faith in Him.

When I write 2018 I make specific reference to the man Jesus. You cannot ignore him. Hollywood jokes about him. Our government tries to exclude him from our public schools, and each one of us creates him in our own image, but Jesus will only be pigeon-holed as the great physician who came for the sick. He also had friends among the religious, rich, poor and middle class, so before you limit Jesus to the people you like think again.

He will stretch you again and again as if the remind you of the way he stretched his arms on the cross.

For God so loved the world.

Do you?