Skip to main content

The Peaceable Kingdom

1920320_593439000738054_1936346289_n


The first sermon I listened to by Jonathan Martin of Renovatus Church was "The Woman at the Well" on 2/3/13. It was on the Samaritan woman in John 4, a common text about which I have heard many sermons. And yet, the way he spoke of the text was revolutionary, as were the remaining sermons in his "Seen" series. I have not looked at the women in the gospels, and the particular way in which Jesus sees them, the same way since.

I have been listening to his sermons for a year, and they have changed me. I do not think I could have endured the suffering of this past year without the wisdom and grace Pastor Jonathan's words have provided me. At the end of our second failed fertility treatment, we planned a spontaneous cabin getaway, and I spent the weekend reading his book Prototype.  It calmed my soul and gave me the hope I needed to keep going.

All that to say, if you are a fan of podcasts, and even if you aren't, you should tune into his new series on the Peaceable Kingdom. The first sermon proclaims his view that the book of Revelation is the most explicitly non-violent book in the Bible, which is radical. And a little crazy. Anyone who hopes to prove a point like that deserves a listen.

Listen here, or subscribe to his podcasts on your phone, as I do. Particularly if you have a frustrating  commute to and from work. It makes the long drive much more bearable. 

PeaceableKingdom


 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Olivia Marilyn Rich

Hi friends! Looks like I blogged in 2018 a total of...zero times. I did start a lot of drafts, but none made it to publishing. I'm hoping to maybe get back into blogging (like, at least more than zero times in 2019), but I realized that until I can give any life updates, I need to post SOMETHING about baby #2's arrival. According to my blog, I'm still 9 weeks pregnant with her, but she is now 15 months old. So here is the completed version of her birth story that I attempted to write last year. In order to tell Livvie's birth story, I need to record her pregnancy. It was hard to write about during it, harder to write about it after it. I'm feeling less connected to it now- it is a hazy memory of misery in my mind. I know it was awful, but I can't quite remember just how awful. I guess this is how people have more babies, as the memories are slowly swallowed up by the heavenliness of the baby outside of the womb. The most difficult part of my pregnancies is...
Post a Comment
Read more

'Til We Finally Meet

When we awoke you were not to be You never swam in our blue sea Now you’ve gone to different oceans Than the one we floated our hopes in When we lost our baby, I did not know how to grieve. So I didn't. I treated it like a failed cycle and put my hand to the plow, pulling my heart and body toward the next thing. We will get pregnant again, I told myself. That will make it all better. Lets pretend this never happened. You were a breaking in the clouds We barely said these things aloud There was a question you were the answer We heard music you were the dancer But in the in-between time, waiting for my body to recover so we could begin treatment again, it eventually became too much to ignore that we had a child. Two children, I guess, though my mind can't possibly comprehend the existence of that other one, the empty sac that never grew beyond four or five weeks. But that beautiful miracle on the ultrasound scream, the sound of the doctor exclaiming "There's a baby with ...
5 comments
Read more

IVF update

We completed our first IVF cycle (minus the transfer)! For those are interested, here's an update on how it went. Stims I was looking forward to the stimming process, with all the sciency needles and vials. And it was fun for awhile, until my follicles (eggs) started growing. Then it started to get old and very uncomfortable. But I responded so well! For our IUI's, I usually had very little response at the first ultrasound. But for my first IVF ultrasound, I already had a great number of follicles growing with an E2 (estrogen level) of 937! And then things just ballooned. Two days later, I had 27 follicles. Then 39. I triggered with 39 follicles and an E2 of 4540. One of the reasons they pushed the number of follicles was due to my left ovary, which they were concerned they might not be able to reach for retrieval. For most of the stimming process, it was hidden underneath my uterus. So they wanted to make sure my right had a good amount of mature follicles, and it di...
3 comments
Read more