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Jesus Is Lord
Forty-two years into marriage and 30 years into parenthood, I’ve come to realize that our shared experiences have yielded some unique expressions. Here are a few idioms that find their way into our conversations, bringing instant understanding among the four of us.
“That’s just Leon being Leon.” A former client of my husband, Leon had a tendency to listen to the sage counsel given to him on any number of occasions, then do exactly what he wanted. It made for repeat business, but not without detriment to Leon due to a series of bad decisions.
“No use waiting around to be late.” At the beginning of my husband’s legal career, one of the firm’s partners tended to dawdle around the office and then run to the courthouse to get there in time for the opening gavel. Not wanting to arrive hot and sweaty, Joe developed his own leisurely pace that allowed him to reach the courthouse with enough time to get a sip of water and refresh himself before arriving in the courtroom 10 minutes ahead of the designated time.
“Jane’s voting for who?” Conversations at our house can be animated and overlapping. If you get distracted, you can easily lose the thread. Yes, we had been talking about whom Jane said she planned to vote for, but we were three topics beyond that — and in the middle of one that made the question hilarious in its context.
“Jesus is Lord and God really did raise Him from the dead.” I absolutely believe this with all my heart, but the first time Joe said it to me in the middle of a painful situation, it felt dismissive — as if he were tying a tidy theological bow around the conversation to avoid entering into the ache with me. A slough‑off answer to move past the discomfort rather than sit with it.
Over time, I’ve come to hear and understand those words differently.
Rather than trying to minimize my pain, Joe was reaching for the truth that holds steady when everything else feels unsteady. If Jesus is Lord, then chaos is not. If God raised Him from the dead, then despair does not get the final word.
This phrase has become a reset for our family. It is our way of saying: This hurts. This is hard. But we are not alone or abandoned. The risen Lord — the One who loves us with an everlasting love — is present here with us.
So now, when Joe says, “Jesus is Lord and God really did raise Him from the dead,” I hear it as an invitation — to breathe, to trust and to remember that our story is not over.
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