In John 2, Jesus attends a wedding in which the wine runs out. In those days, it was a party foul to host a wedding and not have enough wine for the whole party. When the wine runs out, Jesus’ mother, Mary, asks Him to intervene and sends a few servants to help Him rectify the situation. Jesus tells the servants to fill up the waterpots that were being used for the purification ritual for the wedding ceremony. The servants fill up these six stone jars that each hold about twenty to thirty gallons.

Isn’t it funny how following Jesus keeps you on your toes? In my years of knowing Him and walking with Him, my personal testimony is that He has never brought me to places I expected Him to. When I look back at my whole life– born and raised on Long Island, sent to the mission field in South Africa, moving as a newlywed to coastal North Carolina, and most recently, transplanted clear across the country to the mountains of Oregon– there are twists and turns God has set in motion that I could never have anticipated or foresaw myself going in His name.

When Sam and I were dating or newly married, whenever we went somewhere– be it a park, a concert, or an amusement park– Sam would without fail ask me to put his car keys in my purse. And then he’d ask me to hold his phone… and his wallet. It would always annoy me, because my bag would be brimming with someone else’s stuff. And Sam wasn’t the only person to do it. I’d have friends who would do it too. I guess it’s prone to happen when you’re the one in the group that always carries a bag. That bag was a safe place to keep those items people didn’t want to lose. And they would have been correct, because nothing was ever misplaced when it was in my bag.

I remember being 20 years old at a Friday night worship service. It was an all-are-welcome event, so we brought the youth up from the church basement to be a part of it. In the middle of a song, I felt a little tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see my Pastor, David Knapp, standing next to me. With a little smile on his face, he leaned down so I could hear him and said, “Do you think the youth band has a song they’d like to share?” At this point, we had a small youth band comprised of a handful of teens who were mostly self-taught in their instruments. Still, I nodded and he said, “I’ll let the team on the altar know that the youth are going to lead after the next song.”

o sleep. This happens a lot lately. At around 6, Sam woke up and we spent a couple hours talking and laughing as the sun came up behind the shades in our bedroom. As we were laying there, enjoying each other’s company I said something along the lines of, “This is one of the last moments we get to be just us two. Our lives are going to change forever any minute now.”

Before you ask, no, I have not had the baby. Last week’s lack of devotion wasn’t a silent announcement, it was just pregnancy brain. And in the past week, Sam and I have been learning a whole new lesson in patience and waiting for the Lord’s time. It’s not something we’re unfamiliar with. We waited on God to date. We waited on God to get married. We certainly waited on God to conceive this child. And now, we’re waiting on His appointed time for her to come.

Hey Pops, It almost seems unreal that it could be 2022. Somehow, as a child, you think about what being grown will be like, but it’s hard to actually realize it. It’s almost like we take things for granted, whether it be our youth or being blessed enough to live long enough to step into the unknowns of life. There’s something about a new year that feels like standing on the edge of a pool. There’s no doubt that you will plunge in, but when? How? Once you’ve committed to a plunge, gravity takes over and there is no going back.

I wanted to return to John, chapter 1 this week to finish up the little section that we’d been reading through together. I know, these opening verses seem so simple in nature, but they were really radical at the time they were written, and they really peel back parts of the gospel that might seem overplayed to us at times today.

We’ve been traveling through the opening verses of the first chapter of John, going section by section to break down this beautifully complex introduction to the Gospel. The above verses continue to use this analogy of Jesus being the Light coming into the world, illuminating the Truth to those that accept it. Last week, we went into the section of verses that spoke about John the Baptist, and how his ministry bore witness to the light of who Jesus was going to be. John, himself, was not the light but he was a witness to the coming Light.

The Gospel of John starts out differently than all the other gospels. Instead of going through the lineage of Jesus, a prophecy fulfilled, or the re-telling of His birth, John chooses to start at the beginning. No, not the beginning of Jesus’ life. The very beginning of creation, before time began itself. In five short verses, John is able to package and communicate a picture of the supremely vast and awesome fact that Jesus is sovereignly God. Using the Word, light, and life as analogies, John reinforces the existence of the Trinity, God as an uncreated Creator of all, and the pre-eminence of the Savior He is.

CANCELLED. That’s never a word you want to see next to your flight number at the airport. This past weekend, my husband and I flew up to New York to watch our friends get engaged. We flew in Friday night, hung out this weekend, and the plan was to fly back home Sunday night to be back in time for work on Monday morning. But clearly, we were in store for other plans.

Have you ever come in contact with another Christian and thought: Wow, that person spends a LOT of time with Jesus? You know them, people that are practically dripping with the peace and the assuredness that comes with spending a lot of time in His presence. They give awesome advice, because their minds are so deeply rooted in scripture and their very thought process has transformed to be more like Jesus.

We all wonder about the future. Whether that be what you’re going to eat in thirty minutes, the extensive amount of things you have to do tomorrow, or where your life will be in ten years. There are numerous questions that linger in our heads left unanswered, and sometimes it feels as if we have to actively do something to get these answers. It can so easily feel like we are doing something wrong.