Today crucify me, Lord.
Today give me a cross to carry and let me too stumble towards Golgotha. For the call of Christ is a call to die…to really live.
No matter the pain, nail my tongue into silence when the hard moments swarm about, taunting, jeering, deafening. I will remember His drops of thick, warm blood, his piercing crown of thorns digging deep, his lacerated, torn-open back, and today I will remember, in the midst of mothering and educating these half dozen children, to not grow weary for I “have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in [my] striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4).
Today, Father, the Monday after Easter, make me soil for the resurrected life of Christ to begin to germinate, grow, come forth. Break up the ground of my heart. Plow me deep. I am yearning to let the forces of new life work within me.
Sadly, the words haven’t been true, but they are my weak and crying prayer this morning, the day after: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).
It is the Monday after Easter. I will not take down the Cross, but cling to it. I will not roll back the stone, but lay in the tomb, to let the powers of new life heal these wounds, restore to wholeness.
Originally posted April 2007, from the archives
