December 21, 2021
"On Christmas evening, I found a quiet place to call Dad," Jackina Stark writes. "He sounded so good. I wished him a Merry Christmas and asked how his day had been. 'I had a great day!' he said. . . ." (This is another in a series of Christmas memories we are sharing all this week.)
April 24, 2018
By Jackina Stark A few years ago, Anne Lamott wrote a little book on prayer titled Help, Thanks, Wow. Many of our prayers can fit those informal labels. It is not surprising that Help is first in the list. News outlets remind us the world is full of need. Help, Father. Children all over the world are being sold as labor and sex slaves. Help, Lord. Hurricanes and fires and earthquakes and mudslides and tornadoes and floods are taking homes; they’re taking lives. Help. Maniacs are shooting people at concerts and in churches. Help. Corruption and greed are ravaging the
April 17, 2018
By Jackina Stark How do you come to the Lord’s Table? Surely sometimes we come weary and troubled, and we are comforted when we remember Jesus’ words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Maybe you don’t think of those words of comfort, however, if the source of your weariness is the weight of sin—that is, something that is not beyond your control. Has anyone come to the table today having had a fit this week, cussing a blue streak? Has anyone come having been greedy, the very antithesis
April 10, 2018
By Jackina Stark When Lynn’s mom died and then her dad three years later, she inherited many good things from her parents, including a little 14-year-old dog named Gracie who is now 17. Gracie is nearly blind and deaf and is beginning to experience congestive heart failure. She starts and ends her days with eye drops and pills. But she, like most pets, is sweet beyond words and can prance to the door to go out like a puppy. Lynn and her husband consider caring for Gracie the last gift to Lynn’s parents and tend to her with love. Gracie
By Jackina Stark Abraham Lincoln issued several proclamations. Two have forever affected American history and culture. The Emancipation Proclamation, announced September 22, 1863, and effected January 1, 1864, shifted the foremost focus of the Civil War from preserving the Union to the moral issue of abolishing slavery. It made possible the long journey to “liberty and justice for all.” It is a revered document. The original is kept in the National Archives. Its pages are fragile and its ink is fading. It is so delicate it is displayed publicly only on special occasions. Despite its condition, it is considered one
March 27, 2018
By Jackina Stark John’s account of the resurrection of Jesus includes a tender story about Mary Magdalene that can take your breath away (John 20:1-18): The sun surely is rising—how perfectly symbolic—as Mary approaches the tomb with spices and perfume to anoint Jesus’ body. She is surprised and confused to find the “stone had been removed from the entrance.” Her heart beating furiously, she makes her way to the opening and looks in and is horrified to find the tomb empty. What travesty has taken place now? she wonders. As she runs to find Peter and John, she surmises what
August 30, 2017
By Jackina Stark John Donne, 17th-century poet and preacher, wrote some of the most beautiful poetry in the English language. His Holy Sonnet X, “Death Be Not Proud,” may be the greatest expression of Christ”s victory over death since Paul wrote, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). When Donne turns to the issue of sin, his poetry isn”t always so victorious. In “Hymn to God the Father,” the speaker asks if God can possibly forgive all of his sin: Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run
August 16, 2017
By Jackina Stark It is said that John Milton, 17th-century poet, arguably the greatest poet of all time, read everything of consequence in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, and that he knew the Bible by heart. He wanted to use the greatest literary form, the epic, to honor the greatest kingdom and hero of all time. In his unparalleled Paradise Lost (1667), he tried to explain something of God”s ways to man. In book three (of 12), Milton fictionalizes the moment Jesus makes his grand commitment to God and man. God and the Son watch Satan, who is bent on
August 9, 2017
By Jackina Stark Scholars have suggested two details about the cross that I have found intriguing. One has to do with where the cross might have been placed. Some suggest it was not erected at the top of Golgotha but at the base. This is in keeping with crucifixions taking place in busy thoroughfares, but it puts the cross too close to an unconcerned, gawking public for my comfort. It puts it, for that matter, too close to me. The second detail some scholars suggest is that Jesus might have been hung only a few feet above the ground. The
August 2, 2017
By Jackina Stark I once had a vision. It was not as glorious as Isaiah”s””I can”t imagine one more glorious than that””but for me, what I saw one morning during a worship service was profoundly important. We were singing a medley of songs that ended with a beautifully melodic chorus that repeated the word holy over and over and over. I closed my eyes and got lost in the word and found, quite unexpectedly, a new understanding of who Jesus is and what holy means. Twice in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” God is perceptively called merciful and mighty. These
July 19, 2017
By Jackina Stark She stood at a fourth-floor window overlooking the city of Phnom Pehn. She had spent a week in Battambang, Cambodia, at Rapha House, working with those who minister to the girls rescued from sex slavery, and in Phnom Pehn, visiting hundreds of poor children who attend the Kids Club, a prevention ministry. Her fellow workers had gone to the street market, letting her beg off. In the room, utterly quiet now, her gaze fell on the area of the city where at that very moment she knew girls, some children, were being sexually used and abused. Her
November 17, 2016
By Jackina Stark After years of guerilla warfare, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) gained complete power over Cambodia in April 1975 to begin Year Zero and form a Communist peasant farming society. Foreigners were expelled, all national and international communications were cut off, health care was eliminated, and the inhabitants of Cambodian cities were evacuated on foot by gunpoint””2 million in Phnom Penh alone. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, monks, former soldiers and their wives and children””all the educated, religious, and wealthy””were executed. Those allowed to live were forced to labor in the fields 18 hours a day, typically
March 26, 2016
In John 11, Jesus meets Mary and Martha in their grief with both compassion and power. This devotional reflects on his tears, his words, and the hope found in the One who calls Lazarus from the tomb.
September 7, 2012
By Jackina Stark Mama died on July 4, 2011. We almost lost her earlier that year when she went to the hospital with pneumonia. Her doctor told us pneumonia isn”t called the old person”s friend for nothing, but she was treated and released to a nursing home, where she could get rehabilitation. That didn”t go well. She had spent too many years trying to breathe, and she was tired of it. We brought her home, and almost daily she told Dad, who took such loving care of her, that she couldn”t do it anymore. Even walking across a room was
April 4, 2011
By Jackina Stark As I think about the articles and books I”ve written in the last 30 years, certain themes emerge””themes that are part of my spiritual DNA. No theme is more prevalent in my writings, or more beloved, than the wonder of the abiding presence of God in our lives. I saw God transform my parents” lives when I was 9 years old. But I believe the wonder began a year or two before that when I walked to a nearby church on Sunday mornings with my younger sister and, I think, even my baby brother in tow. As
December 26, 2007
By Mark A. Taylor “Why don”t you just talk with them?” I suggested. She and I were discussing a married couple in the church whose attitudes would probably slow down progress on our ministry project. “Because it won”t do any good,” she answered quickly. “I”ve discovered through the years that talking to people about some way they need to change seldom results in making the change happen.” Even though I”ve forgotten the details surrounding this conversation, I still wrestle with this Christian leader”s conclusion. Don”t talk to people about change? But isn”t the church in the change business? Hasn”t Paul
November 4, 2007
By Jackina Stark Mercy, there are a lot of reasons to cry. I went in not so long ago and talked to Ozark Christian College Academic Dean Mark Scott about cutting back my teaching load. I wanted more time to travel, to write, to see the grandchildren and my aging parents. Necessarily, our talk moved to when I would retire altogether, and of course, at that point I started crying. I”m sure he wished I”d just sent a letter. Well, for goodness” sake, he must have thought, what do you want? I want more time to travel, to write, to
February 18, 2007
The 2007 North American Christian Convention emphasizes church planting while offering strong workshop tracks for women and families, including sessions on parenting, marriage, women’s ministry, and facing real-life challenges with faith and grace.
April 16, 2006
By Jackina Stark When I was a young girl, I would swing high into the blue sky on summer afternoons, singing over and over the first verse of “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I sang of a truth that I barely understood but a truth that became the foundation of my life: the holy God is both “merciful and mighty.” I learned that song at the church where my parents sent us children on Sunday mornings. It wasn”t too many years before this merciful and mighty God saved my parents from a second divorce for each of them and a variety of
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