Hey SUM family, Tiffany here!

I have been thinking about the timeline of Holy Week. I was blessed to be able to write for Thursday's post. I didn't realize until recently that Thursday is referenced as "Maundy Thursday." Doing a quick online study I found that Maundy comes from "mandatum" which in Latin means: mandate, command, law, order to do something, commandment. How neat! Of course, the night before Jesus' crucifixion, we see the Last Supper and instructions that Jesus gives to the disciples.

I want to focus on what happens afterwards. I want to talk about Gethsemane.

Did you know that Gethsemane is comprised of two Hebrew words?

Gath + Shemen = oil press

In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see Jesus take His disciples there to pray. He tasks them with praying so that they would not fall into temptation. A little further ahead He goes to spend time with Abba Father. No matter how close that He had become with the disciples, He still could not take Him where He had to go. Isn't it like our SUM? No matter how receptive, how supportive, how loving, how attentive our spouses are to us and our lives...they still cannot be where we are. Hear my heart because I don't want that to be taken the wrong way. Even with a household with two Christian parts to the marriage, the relationship with the Father belongs to the individual.

But in a SUM, the weight of life, circumstances, loneliness, heartache, stress, responsibility, revelation, is so much heavier when we have to carry it alone.

In His anguish, Jesus prays that there might be another way...BUT not His will but God's be done. Coming back to check on the disciples, He finds that they've gone to sleep. This happens a few times!

I sometimes feel this way...especially in this fight for the children in the public school system. I pray, I press in, I grieve what I've learned is happening...in coming back to my husband, it seems that he is asleep...unaware, uninterested, unmoved.

What about in your life? Many questions swirl around in this hardened season. How do we school our children? How do we deal with job loss? Impending divorce? Financial hardship? Health scares?  Progress, breakthrough and victory impeded by strongholds and backsliding?

I think that we know the process of the press is brutal to the olive. A lot of us are in various stages of pressure and hardship, as if we are the olives being turned into oil.

Olive oil had many uses in Jesus' time...it was integral to society. It was used to light lamps for seeing in the dark. I was used for medicine, anointing, cooking, making bread.

Could it be that we the believing spouse are being prepared in this season for husbands and wives benefit? We are the light of Jesus in our darkened households. We are the nourishment as we carry the Word (remember Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone?!). We bring the anointing and healing as we intercede for our families.

The process of the press is uncomfortable, painful and seemingly unbearable. BUT God! He refines, purifies, transforms and refreshes us into the useful, essential thing needed in our household.

In the pressing, remember that it is only for a season. Remember that you are integral to your home. You are a benefit and a treasure. You are essential. You are powerful. You are made for such a time as this.

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. - 1 Corinthians 7:14

My prayer goes out to you on this Holy Thursday. I bless you with the nourishment, light, anointing, healing of Jesus Christ who first went through the press for you.