Lisa Brenninkmeyer's Blog, page 9

For Your Weekend: You Have a Story to Tell

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Mark 16:15–20

Years ago, I walked into a hotel gym to work out and was immediately overwhelmed by six screens, all playing the same music videos. With no remote in sight, I jumped on the elliptical, hoping I could ignore them. I couldn’t. For the next hour, I saw the glorification of sex, obscene materialism, and drug use in every single video. I walked out with a pit in my stomach and felt the Holy Spirit remind me of what I already knew. Sin is so dull. Th...

For Your Weekend: What It Means to Abide

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 15:9–17

When I love someone, I go all in. I trust until a person gives me a reason not to. This has led me to some incredibly beautiful connections and friendships but also experiences of being taken advantage of and hurt. You can likely relate because real relationships can get messy. When they do, I am always comforted by Psalm 119:114, which reminds me that God is “my hiding place and my shield.” Hiding away in the shelter of Jesus reminds me of our ...

For Your Weekend: From Striving to Abiding

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 15:1–8

At the beginning of Lent, I shared how I’d been praying with the question, “In prayer, are you achieving or are you receiving?” It was a question that began to reveal to me areas of perfectionism and a performance-driven prayer. So, with humility and vulnerability, I embarked on a Lenten journey of surrender, inviting Jesus to minister to the desert of my heart.

And what a transformative journey it has been, my friends.

I started Lent slowly and ...

For Your Weekend: What the Good in “Good Shepherd” Really Means

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 10:11–18

If I were to ask you to think back to your childhood and recall one of the first images that you had of Jesus, I’m certain the Good Shepherd would be among the most common. Can’t we all bring to mind the statue or image of Jesus holding a staff with one hand, a lamb draped over His shoulders? 

This week’s gospel passage from John 10:11–18 harkens us back to this image of our Lord as a sweet and passive man surrounded by the fluffiest of sheep. ...

For Your Weekend: The Necessity of Our Brokenness

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Luke 24:35–48

When life's storms hit and peace (along with my sanity) flies out the window, it’s hard for me to see straight. The brokenness feels like too much. Paralyzed by fear, I tend to sit in the shards of a broken dream, hope, or life that appears to require nothing short of a miracle to piece back together.

Can you relate?

Oh, how easy it is to forget that the breakdown always comes just before the breakthrough.

How quickly we give in to fear, forget...

For Your Weekend: When God Gets Personal

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 20:19–31

In 2008, evangelical speaker and writer Angie Smith found out that her fourth baby would not survive more than a couple of hours outside of her womb. She began blogging about her experience, and two years later, amid my conversion, I stumbled upon her blog. I read it from the beginning, bawling my eyes out, of course, but also finding deep encouragement as I sought to trust God the way she did.

As I read her writing, I noticed that although she...

For Your Weekend: Going on the Offensive with Resurrected Hope

Dig Deeper into Easter Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 20:1–9

In one of her essays on women, Saint Edith Stein wrote, “Women comprehend not merely with the intellect but also with the heart.”[1] I especially feel the truth of this statement with my children as I’ve studied their unique mannerisms and reactions. I recently noticed something one of my kids says that sounds like a throwaway comment but is connected to unrest deeper down. 

“What is happening?!” he’ll say. 

No one answers his rhetorical q...

For Your Weekend: Anoint the King

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Mark 11:1–10 and Mark 14:1—15:47

Here we are, at the threshold of Holy Week. Somehow, another Lent is all but behind us. As we stand here, I wonder where your heart is. 

Are you filled with eager anticipation as we prepare to enter into the crux of the Paschal mystery? 

Or perhaps, does a week called holy feel overwhelming amidst a world that seems far from it? 

Is your heart weighed down by burdens? Is the thought of entering into Jesus’ suffering unimagina...

For Your Weekend: One Day We Will See Jesus

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John:12:20–33

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (John 12:20).

There have been so many times that I have longed to see Jesus, touch Him, and hug Him. Countless times, I have knelt in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and imagined Him right next to me. In times of deepest prayer, I have been able to picture my head resting on His shoulder, my hand in His. While I recognize these mental images as consolations and grace, I still long for the moment when I w...

For Your Weekend: Don’t Look Away

Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read John 3:14–21

It was how he held his fingers that got me. I have seen many images of our crucified Savior, but this one differed. It grabbed me because, unlike the familiar, sanitized versions I have grown accustomed to, this one did something to me. It made me uncomfortable. 

The artist Matthias Grünewald painted The Crucifixion of Christ[1] as a panel for the Isenheim Altarpiece in the hospital chapel of St. Anthony’s monastery.[2] Ergotism was an excruciat...