This is My Story, This is My Song

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. By grace you are saved!"
 -Ephesians 2:4-5

From Death to Life on a Good Friday

For the past two years, God has really captivated me on Good Friday and I just can’t seem to get the scenes from the Passion of the Christ out of my head. Some would consider that a terrible thing, but I along with many others, know it’s a great thing.

To you, that may be a sickening thought. There’s nothing pretty about a man being beaten and forced to carry a heavy cross through a town and up a hill just to have people drive nails through his hands and feet. You’re completely right. There’s nothing pretty about it; it’s beautiful.

Perhaps that evoked another nauseous feeling. It’s only beautiful when you think of who Jesus was (and is) and who we are. Jesus is God (see the entire Bible for references). That’s a seemingly simple sentence, but it’s packed with more meaning than I can describe. Jesus is perfect. He is worthy. True love.  He is the Way. The Truth. The Life. The Creator. Without blemish. He is the Good Shepherd—He will lay down His life for His sheep (us), even when wolves come, and He will leave 99 sheep to go find 1. He was dead… but He is alive.

We are sinful. Another small sentence packed with meaning. We not only turned our backs on God when He created us and gave us life and fellowship with Himself, but we ran as far as we could. We are in constant rebellion against God. We choose to be disobedient towards God—the One that wants the best for us, that gives us hope, and a future. We are shackled and enslaved to our sin. We are separated from God by a chasm that we could never jump or build a bridge over because of all of these things. We are in need of a Redeemer, a Savior.  We are dead.

Here’s why Jesus’ beating and crucifixion was (and still is) beautiful: despite our nasty shortcomings, God still loved us enough to send His Son from Heaven to live on Earth in human form—100% man and 100% God—among people that despised and persecuted Him. He lived the perfect life and we crucified Him, but that was God’s plan all along. The cross is the only thing that can bridge the chasm that our sin created between us and God.

God’s entire cup of wrath—righteously meant for us—was completely poured on Jesus at the cross, without a drop spared. Because of this, our fellowship with God is restored. He gives us life. He looks on us and sees us covered in Jesus’ blood and has adopted us into His family. Nothing will ever separate us from His family either. Not death, not life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things to come, powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us. He gives us His Spirit to live inside us and continually make us more like Christ. That’s great news!

More great news: it's open to everyone. Not just people that look like they have their life together. Not just people that are nice and "live good lives." Not just the rich, not just the middle class, and not just the poor. Everyone. We have to respond to this, though. We must choose to either continue in our rebellious ways or admit that we are in need of a Savior to redeem us from our sins against God and believe that Christ’s grace and mercy is more than enough to cover all of our iniquities.

If you have admitted and believed this in your life, I would encourage you to not let yourself become desensitized to this message. You need it every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

If you have never admitted and believed this message, I would love to talk to you more about it! Please email me at:

Stephanie_Scrivne1@mymail.eku.edu

Happy Good Friday!

Resting on the Everlasting Arms of our Lord

"The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

-Deuteronomy 33:27

This is Hillary's favorite Bible verse. One of her favorite qualities about God is that He is everlasting--a really mind blowing quality when you stop and think about what everlasting means. She led my Bible study with Jordan my freshman year at Eastern and passed away a year ago today. 

There are SO many things to say about Hillary. She was inspiring. Bubbly. Had a huge heart for the lost. Was real (in more than one way... haha shout-out to the R.E.A.L. Women). Godly. Gave the best hugs. Was my zombie mom on spring break. Genuinely cared about everyone. This doesn't really even begin to touch the surface of Hillary, but I think it gives a decent start to understanding her.

She taught me so many things. She didn't just teach me through words what a Godly relationship looks like, she lived it out. She taught me Jesus was radical, and that completely blew my mind. I was taken aback when she said that we should be radical because Jesus was. I see myself learning from her still, to this day.

One of the best and most memorable Bible studies I've ever been to was when we talked about Heaven. I'm pretty sure the topic that night wasn't necessarily supposed to be Heaven, but we somehow got there. At that point, I had seen Hillary excited, but she was at least 10 times more excited when she started talking about Heaven. She was giddy! It was great. I left that night with a better eternal perspective, more desire to know the Lord and what He had in store for me, and a book recommendation (Heaven by Randy Alcorn -- I just started it and it's fantastic). That's just one of the zillion things she and Jordan taught me freshman year. I couldn't have asked for a better pair of leaders. Only God could have pulled them together and then placed me in their group.

I remember at the memorial service we had for her on the first day of school, we sang "Our God" by Chris Tomlin. We sang, "Our God is greater, our God is stronger. God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power."

Singing that song in a time like that just really struck me. In my opinion, you'll only find joy and worship during a trial in a Christian community--people whose hearts are being captivated by Christ. People that understand and trust the words when it says later in the song, "If our God is for us then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?" (see Romans 8:31).

Hillary was one person that understood that. She recognized that there is a God and He is holy, without flaw. That we were created to have fellowship with God, but that fellowship was broken because of our sin. That God saw this brokenness and restored it Himself, because nothing we could ever do on our own-no amount of good deeds, no church going, nor how "good" we are-would ever be able to restore this relationship. So He sent His son Jesus to earth to live a life that was without sin and die on the cross, taking God's wrath when we are the ones that deserve it. And if we place our faith in Jesus and believe that He not only died, but rose again, we will have everlasting life in Heaven.

That's how I know Hillary is in Heaven. That's how I know I'll see her again one day. And that's why my brothers and sisters in Christ and I can sing songs like "Our God" and "It Is Well With My Soul" in times of sorrow.

Love and miss you, Hillary!

If you would like to know more, I would love to tell you more! Email me at:

stephanie_scrivne1@mymail.eku.edu