Tagged: Audrey Frank

For my oldest son. You are doing a great job and I love you. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Proverbs 3:5-6 Decisions, decisions. How can we make a solid decision when the present and the future are uncertain? The global pandemic seems to have stripped us of the privilege of planning. Plans make us feel better about the future. When we plan, we feel like we have some hope, some measure of control. Something better than now to look forward to. Something worth working toward. But plans require decision-making. And who can make a solid decision these days? A wise… Read More

With heartfelt thanks to Kaylene, at The Soul Care Institute.  I am thirsty. John 19:28 Jesus was very good at asking for help. He was the prime example of vulnerable asking.   These words from my friend stopped the breath in my throat. I had never, ever, considered this before. Jesus, asking for help? He asked the disciples to go find a donkey for him at the Triumphal Entry to Jerusalem. He asked to borrow someone’s room for the Last Supper. He asked his disciples to please go with him to the Garden of Gethsemane, to wait with Him. He asked for help from the cross. Twice. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom Jesus loved standing nearby, He said to His… Read More

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. John 9:1-3 His espresso eyes welled with sincerity as he sat gingerly on my bed. What sin have you committed, sister? I have come to ask God to forgive you and heal you. My migraines were exponential in the equatorial heat, and carrying water on my head in five-gallon buckets was not helping. I was spending more and more time in the welcoming relief of my shadowy mud house, retreating from sun and exertion.… Read More

He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us… He will raise us up… That we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth (from Hosea 6:1-3). When we finally were able to receive visitors, we tried to prepare them for the pain. Are you sure you want to come? It will be hard. A hospital intensive care burn unit is a terrifying place to spend days and nights. Pain is a constant, cruel, raging, loud companion. In the long parade of weeks we spent… Read More

The crescendo of the Cross was composed in the wilderness. Jesus settled it long before the sound of the nails fixing His hands to a wooden cross, the cleansing last breath as He committed His spirit to the Father, or the quiet authority of the angelic herald’s words to Mary, He is not here, He has risen! Before Jesus’ earthly ministry began, Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. Each confrontation was both a challenge to Jesus’ identity and a distortion of the truth.  Every one of Jesus’ responses began with the words, it is written… The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on… Read More

I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again, and going to the Father (John 16:28). As joyful shouts filled the air and palm branches blanketed the road into Jerusalem, no one seemed to realize that Jesus was in transition. Like the seismic shift of tectonic plates in the earth during an earthquake, the landscape of human history was tilting and changing. And Jerusalem was the fault line.  Jesus was entering the space in between, a place between The Way Things Used to Be and the Way Things Will Be. Between an earthly home and a heavenly one. He had made this shift before through the power of labor and delivery, His newborn cry piercing the… Read More

This is the revised edition of a popular post originally published on audreyfrank.org March 31, 2019. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28). “I want to be an astronaut, but I still want to be a doctor, too,” she said, her beautiful brow crinkled in consternation. “Well, astronauts need doctors to care for them,” I suggested. “I know. But I’m not worrying about it. I’ve put that stress on Jesus. Is that okay? To give Jesus my stress?” “Yes,… Read More

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:35-38) Jesus was comfortable in the company of outcasts. For so long I skipped right over the heart-stopping, radical action of this passage. I barely paused to notice. Okay, so Jesus went after an outcast. He was Jesus, after all, and that’s what He did. It was part of his Messiah job description. Then I began to live and work among the outcast… Read More

Walking in the dark night of Africa is risky. The black mamba, one of the world’s deadliest snakes, can completely camouflage himself within the inky darkness. He is one of the few snakes which are active at night and particularly loves wood or metal that has absorbed the heat of the day.  We encountered the black mamba only once, coiled around the grating on our screen door. After a long night of good conversation and milky, hot chai by lantern light, we walked our guests to the door. As my husband reached out his hand, the darkness moved, alerting us to the killer’s poisonous presence. The sleeping village erupted in excited shouts as men, women, and children came running from every direction to kill the… Read More

  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him (John 13:5). niptō: (Greek) to wash; to cleanse; to perform ablution.   Dear Fatima, I can’t stop thinking about our conversation yesterday. The question you asked me.  Why don’t you Christians have to make yourselves clean before you pray?  We are women. We are told we cannot approach God unless we are clean. That He will not accept our prayers if we are dirty. This has always bothered me about my own religion, Audrey.  I see you working so hard to make yourself clean. Clean enough to approach God. Pure enough to bring your prayers before Him, hoping He will… Read More