{"id":123,"date":"2026-03-22T09:03:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/?p=123"},"modified":"2026-03-22T09:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:11:21","slug":"dont-take-it-out-on-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/2026\/03\/22\/dont-take-it-out-on-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t take it out on them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Don't Take It Out on Them \u2014 Sunday Kickoff | Seven Statements from the Cross | Statement Three -->\n\n<style>\n@import url('https:\/\/fonts.googleapis.com\/css2?family=Oswald:wght@300;400;600;700&family=EB+Garamond:ital,wght@0,400;0,500;1,400;1,500&display=swap');\n\n.su-post {\n  font-family: 'EB Garamond', Georgia, serif;\n  color: #2a2825;\n  line-height: 1.85;\n  max-width: 740px;\n  margin: 0 auto;\n  padding: 0;\n}\n\n.su-post * { box-sizing: border-box; }\n\n.su-post p {\n  font-size: 18px;\n  line-height: 1.85;\n  color: #2a2825;\n  margin: 0 0 26px;\n}\n\n.su-anchor-verse {\n  border-left: 4px solid #C8922A;\n  background: #faf7f2;\n  padding: 32px 36px;\n  margin: 0 0 48px;\n  border-radius: 0 6px 6px 0;\n}\n\n.su-anchor-verse blockquote {\n  margin: 0; 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Then He said to the disciple, &#8216;Behold, your mother!&#8217; From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.&#8221;<\/p>\n      <cite>John 19:26\u201327 &nbsp;\u00b7&nbsp; ESV<\/cite>\n    <\/blockquote>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p>Shifting gears this week with a new series leading up to Easter. I thought it appropriate to take our learnings each week as &#8220;Statements from the Cross&#8221; \u2014 the kickoff title for this series. We are still exploring real life and how we can better respond as Jesus would want us; just not necessarily with the &#8220;Fruitful&#8221; angle (even though that will always persist as my mission). So let&#8217;s go back to when Jesus was on the cross.<\/p>\n\n  <p>Seven times Jesus spoke from the cross. Seven statements that show us exactly who He is and exactly how He calls us to live. We&#8217;re walking through each one together this season. Here&#8217;s where we&#8217;ve been and where we are this week.<\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"su-statements\">\n\n    <div class=\"su-statement-item\">\n      <span class=\"su-statement-num\">Statement One<\/span>\n      <div class=\"su-statement-text\">\n        <em>&#8220;Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.&#8221;<\/em>\n        <span>Luke 23:34 &nbsp;\u00b7&nbsp; Forgiveness<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"su-statement-item\">\n      <span class=\"su-statement-num\">Statement Two<\/span>\n      <div class=\"su-statement-text\">\n        <em>&#8220;Today you will be with me in paradise.&#8221;<\/em>\n        <span>Luke 23:43 &nbsp;\u00b7&nbsp; Generosity<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"su-statement-item su-statement-active\">\n      <span class=\"su-statement-num\">Statement Three \u203a<\/span>\n      <div class=\"su-statement-text\">\n        <em>&#8220;Woman, here is your son. Here is your mother.&#8221;<\/em>\n        <span>John 19:26\u201327 &nbsp;\u00b7&nbsp; Care \u00b7 This Week<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p>There is a moment most of us know but rarely name. You pull into the driveway after a day that took something from you. Maybe it was a meeting that went sideways, a number that doesn&#8217;t add up, or a phone call about a parent&#8217;s health that you&#8217;ve been sitting with for three hours. The house lights are on. Someone inside is making dinner or finishing homework or waiting to tell you about their day. And something in you, the part that is tired, the part that is scared, the part that is already rehearsing the next problem, decides to walk in carrying all of it.<\/p>\n\n  <p>We don&#8217;t always mean to. That&#8217;s the honest part. The flesh doesn&#8217;t announce itself. It just shows up at the table in our silence, in the way we answer a simple question with a short answer, in the sigh we didn&#8217;t think anyone heard. And the people who love us most absorb it. Because they&#8217;re closest to us, and closeness is where we stop performing.<\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"su-pull-quote\">\n    <p>Jesus was hanging on a cross when He looked down and made sure His mother had someone to take care of her. In the middle of the worst moment in the history of the world, His first concern was the people standing closest to Him.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p>That&#8217;s Statement Three. And it&#8217;s the standard we&#8217;re holding up this week, not the theological version, but the dinner-table version. The one where someone asks how was your day and we answer in a tone that says don&#8217;t ask follow-up questions.<\/p>\n\n  <p>This week we&#8217;re looking at what it means to bring that same orientation home. To identify the real source of our weight before we walk through that door. To protect the ones at our table from carrying something that isn&#8217;t theirs. Love, as the Scripture defines it, is sacrificial; it gives even when it costs. Joy is the power to endure hard seasons without letting those seasons become the defining mood of your household. And peace, the shalom of God, is wholeness. A home where everyone at the table is covered, not just tolerated.<\/p>\n\n  <hr class=\"su-rule\">\n\n  <div class=\"su-callout\">\n    <span class=\"su-label\">This Week<\/span>\n    <p>Five real stories. Five real crossroads. Monday through Friday we&#8217;ll walk through Statement Three together: the marriage that&#8217;s drifted to side by side, the son who&#8217;s almost ready to leave, the husband who finally opens the box, the man who&#8217;s been carrying something alone he doesn&#8217;t have to, and the family that needs someone to call them back to the table. Join us each day this week.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"su-prayer\">\n    <span class=\"su-label\">This Week&#8217;s Prayer<\/span>\n    <p>Lord, we walk into our homes carrying more than we should. Teach us to set it down before we set foot in the door. Give us eyes to see who is waiting, who is covering, who is tired, who just needs us to show up whole. You looked down from the cross and covered your mother. Help us look up from our own pressures and cover the ones you placed in our care. Amen.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, &#8216;Woman, behold, your son!&#8217; Then He said to the disciple, &#8216;Behold, your mother!&#8217; From that hour the disciple took her into&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart-and-habits","category-marriage-and-home","category-relationships"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SU_20260322_BLOG.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}