JenWithOneN

Just a small town girl.. living in a crazy world

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

There are pictures on my wall that don't exist anymore.

All seven of us. Five kids. Two parents. Two dogs. Taken before the exodus started.

Three of my kids live in Florida now. The oldest two left first. The third followed when he turned eighteen. My wife and I are in North Dakota with our two youngest girls and two dogs who still answer to the names of the ones we buried.

Chester. Ginger. We call the new ones by their names without thinking. Our mouths remember the ghost dogs before our brains catch up.

Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel in 1940 called You Can't Go Home Again. Published after he died. The last lines still cut like a blade:

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood... back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

I didn't understand that quote until this year.

My dad was an Army Ranger. Police captain. The kind of man who made you feel like nothing on earth could touch you as long as he was in the building. I remember the smells of my mom's cooking. The noise of me and my brothers fighting and doing dumb things. My younger brother getting caught up in our foolishness whether he wanted in or not.

I remember the feeling of safety. That bone-deep knowing that your father has it handled.

I can't go back there. Those smells are memories. That noise is silence. That safety was a season—not a permanent address.

I'm a child of the 80s. Music was always playing. Always. And now a song doesn't remind me of a time—it relocates me.

Duran Duran and I'm in Germany.
An old country song and I'm in North Carolina.
A 90s track and I'm in Hawaii.

Three chords and I'm standing in a place that doesn't exist anymore.

The other day I was writing. Apple Music dropped in a song I didn't ask for.

"Welcome to the Machine" by Pink Floyd.

The opening synth hit me first. Then the lyrics.

Welcome my son. Welcome to the machine.

I stopped typing. Looked at that picture on the wall. All five kids. My wife next to me. And the thought came uninvited—are we inside a machine? Some system grinding us through its gears while we smile for photos we'll weep over later?

I grounded myself fast. The Word of God is my anchor and I don't drift long.

But the thought stung.

Because this week "Christian social media" was buzzing about the Grammys and Kid Rock and the TPUSA Super Bowl halftime show. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone was outraged or celebrating or performing discernment for an audience.

And all of it, every take, every hot post, every argument, reminded me of one thing:

We are not home.

Wolfe was right. You can't go home again. But Wolfe didn't have the answer. He diagnosed the ache. He couldn't name the cure.

Solomon could.

"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." —Ecclesiastes 3:11

That word—world—is olam in the Hebrew.

Eternity.

God set eternity in your heart.

That's why the pictures make you ache. That's why old songs teleport you. That's why you call the new dog by the dead dog's name. That's why you sit in a quiet house remembering when it was chaos—and realize the chaos was the gift.

You were built for a home that doesn't decay. Where time doesn't steal your children or silence your kitchen or bury your dogs in the backyard.

The ache isn't a malfunction. It's a homing signal.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." —Hebrews 11:13
That's what Wolfe felt but couldn't name. That's what Pink Floyd reached for but couldn't grasp. That's what every 80s kid feels when the right song plays and the chest tightens and you're eight years old again for three seconds before time drags you back to the present.

You can't go home again.

Because you were never home to begin with.

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." —John 14:2

He's building it right now.

And when you walk through that door, you won't have to leave again.

I wrote the full version of this tonight on Substack. It goes deeper. If this hit you in the chest, go read it.

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@tinndfishmonger Diet Coke tastes like tin can water. Nasty

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@MrBeast 123456789

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@shuffles99 @MadelnCanada St. Thomas!

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@MikeWingerii Just pick the version you like. I don’t like all versions but the bible app is its own company and has the right to have whatever versions they want available. Its also good to have it available to see what is biblical and what isn’t

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@farmingandJesus Acts 2- 21-24. We do communion service the first Sunday of every month.

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@MikeWingerii I recommend edge of eternity by Randy Alcorn 😊

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@RaminNasibov

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@Gods_WarriorUSA Ya , okay. Doesn’t fit the rest of your responses. Hey, if it gets people commenting on your stuff good for you 🤷‍♀️

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@farmingandJesus The first Sunday of the month 😊

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@skilletmusic Coming to Canada @skilletmusic ??

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

He died for your lust.
He died for your adultery.
He died for your fornication.
He died for your gossip.
He died for your homosexuality.
He died for your murder.
He died for your prostitution.
He died for your violence. Your gang life.
He died for your unforgiveness.
He died for your kidnapping.
He died for the wife you failed to be.
He died for the husband you failed to be.
He died for the child you failed to be.
He died for the mother you failed to be.
He died for the father you failed to be.
He died for the evangelist you failed to be.
He died for the pastor you failed to be.
He died for the teacher you failed to be.
He died for your abortion.
He died for your child abuse.
He died for your rape.
He died for your condemning tongue.
He died for the parents you neglected.
He died for your lying.
He died for your false witness.
He died for your coveting.
He died for your stealing.

He died for every sin you ever committed. Because He loves you.

Jesus Christ. Our Saviour. He shed His blood on the cross. Died in your place. Buried. Three days in the ground. Then He rose. Victorious over sin. Victorious over death. Everlasting life to whosoever believes on His name.

Romans 6:23 (KJV) — For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 10:9 (KJV) — That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Acts 16:31 (KJV) — Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

2 Corinthians 6:2 (KJV) — Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today. Today is the day of salvation.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

I wrote it all out. The women your Bible mentions in Genesis 6 that nobody preaches on.

Full piece on Dead Hidden:
https://t.co/Wc8AKXmsQu

[PaulsCorner-VerseQuest @TNTJohn1717]

🚨‼️The devil’s last trick isn’t going to look like a drunk in an alley with a knife. It’s going to look like a “solution.” It’s going to look like order after chaos, unity after division, and “peace and safety” after exhaustion. That’s why Revelation doesn’t introduce the Beast like a cartoon villain, it introduces him like a savior figure the world has been craving, and it introduces the False Prophet like a miracle minister who can make the lie feel holy.

And that’s the part most Christians miss: Satan doesn’t just oppose God, he imitates God. He builds a counterfeit godhead. The Dragon supplies the authority behind the throne, the Beast becomes the visible “christ” of the system, and the False Prophet becomes the wonder-working “spirit” that pushes worship and seals allegiance. It’s not random wickedness, it’s structured replacement. It’s worship theft dressed up as destiny.

So here’s the test that will save you from a thousand deceptions: follow who gets glorified. The Holy Ghost magnifies Jesus Christ, because the Lord said, “He shall glorify me” (John 16:14). The counterfeit spirit magnifies the Beast. If the “move,” the “fire,” the “miracles,” the “unity,” and the “revival” do not land you at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the word of God, you’re not watching heaven, you’re watching hell do theater.

People keep saying, “I just want peace.” Fine, but peace without truth is a chain, and unity without Christ is a trap. The last days won’t be sold as evil, they’ll be sold as necessity, and the crowd will call it salvation while they bow to a lie. If you want to survive the age of counterfeits, stop chasing the show and start clinging to the Book, because the devil can counterfeit wonders, but he can’t counterfeit Scripture without exposing himself.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Blood on the forearms up to the elbow.

That was the job. Morning to night. A priest in the tabernacle stood in it. Lamb after lamb. Throat opened, basin held underneath. The flies knew the schedule better than the worshippers did.

There was no chair.

Look around the room. Gold. Curtains. Bread on a table. Incense burning so thick it sat in your lungs. But nothing to sit on.

Not an oversight. A sentence.

The work was never done. Another sin. Another animal dragged in bleating. Another life bled out on stone. The priest’s knees locked. His back screamed. He kept standing because the law said standing was the only posture guilt would accept.

Steam off the blood in cold air. Flies on wet flesh.

A man knee-deep in death and no permission to rest.

You know this room.

Not the blood. But the standing. The 4 AM kitchen. Cold meat out of foil over the sink because sitting down feels like theft. Work boots still wet from yesterday. Knees that grind on the stairs. One more bill. One more fire. One more thing you should’ve caught but didn’t.

You treat God like a shift manager.

Clock in. Perform. Hope the numbers are good enough. Pray like a man filling out a time card — careful, apologetic, always behind.

You built the tabernacle inside your own chest. Furniture for guilt. A curtain for shame. Incense to cover what you actually smell like when you’re honest.

But no chair.

You never built one because you don’t believe the work is done. There’s always another thing. Another way you failed your kids. Another thing your old man never said to you that you swore you’d say to yours — and didn’t. You stand in it. You keep standing. Because sitting down feels like giving up and giving up is the one thing no one in your family does.

Here is where the whole thing breaks.

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” Hebrews 10:12.

Sat down.

Not from exhaustion. Not because His shift ended. Because the work was finished. Every lamb. Every morning. Every throat cut and basin held — a thousand years of blood swallowed into one afternoon on a hill outside Jerusalem.

He didn’t just bring the blood.

Romans 3:25. “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.”

That word — propitiation. Same word used for the mercy seat. The gold lid on the ark where blood was sprinkled once a year. Most dangerous square footage in Israel.

Touch it wrong and you die. The high priest went in once a year, rope around his ankle, bells on his hem so the men outside could hear if he was still breathing.

Jesus is not standing in front of the mercy seat.

He IS the mercy seat.

Priest, offering, and furniture — collapsed into one man with holes in His hands. The place where wrath was satisfied and the person who satisfied it. Same scarred body.

And that body says come. Not carefully. Not with a rope around your ankle. Boldly. The most lethal square foot in the ancient world is a person now. Palms up. Scars visible.
The man in the 4 AM kitchen doesn’t need to earn the chair.

It was bought with blood before he was born. Before his father was born. Before whatever broke in his family started breaking.

He can sit down.

He won’t though. Not yet. The standing is all he knows and the silence in sitting terrifies him worse than the pain of staying upright.

But the chair is there. It has always been there.

Bought at a price that smelled like iron and sounded like a man breathing His last and it is finished and it is empty and it is his.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Crucifix Honey

Every April they sweeten the cross.

Package the blood. Soften the nails.

Put a choir behind the screaming
so it sounds like music.

Crucifix honey.

He died on a garbage hill covered in flies
while Jerusalem ate dinner.

Not in a cathedral.

Not in a painting.

Not in the stained glass window
your grandmother pointed at
when you were six
and told you that man loved you.

On a trash heap.

Outside the city.

Where they dumped dead animals.

Where the dogs came at night.

That’s where God died.

Naked.

Bones showing through His back.

Mouth so dry His tongue stuck to His jaw.

Soldiers underneath Him gambling for His shirt
like it was a scratch-off ticket.

His mother stood there.

Couldn’t touch Him.

Couldn’t hold His hand.

Just watched the boy she nursed in a barn
choke to death on a Roman post
while flies landed on what used to be His back.

And the church put a frame around it.

Sanded down the wood.

Took the splinters out of the cross
and made it smooth enough to hang
around a pretty neck.

We turned the execution of God
into decoration.

The Romans drove the nails.

We gold-plated them.

Crucifix honey.

He sweat blood in a garden
because His body tried to die
before they could kill Him.

And we walk past it every Sunday
like it’s wallpaper.

He carried His own death up a hill
on a back that didn’t have skin on it.

And we put the cross on a bumper sticker
between the stick figure family
and the fish.

He screamed.

And we made it a holiday.

[The Gospel Coalition @TGC]

Good Friday reminder:

“The man on the middle cross said I could come.”

[JenWithOneN @JenJenWithOneN]

@FightofFaith Come thou fount of every blessing

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

I was 12 years old, reading Revelation in my bedroom, scared out of my mind about the lake of fire.

Lost kid. No direction. Just terror.

Then I got kicked out of public school. Ended up at a Catholic school run by nuns who had zero reason to care about a Protestant kid with discipline problems.

But they did.

That's where I learned what it looks like when someone finds you.

From there, Christian school in North Carolina. Pastor Lance heard my story, the mess, the mistakes, all of it.

He looked at me and said: "That was the past. Today's a new day."

When I told him I felt called to preach, he didn't hesitate.

"You're up Wednesday night."

I was found. Given a shot. Launched.

Fast forward to today. My relationship with Jesus is sweeter now than when I was that terrified 12-year-old reading Revelation alone.

But this week, I watched "Christians" forget what "found" looks like.

Jelly Roll and Kid Rock mentioned Jesus and the Bible at the Super Bowl.

Millions heard them.

And the "Christians" came out of the woodwork calling these men wicked as hell.

Here's what they forgot:

God used a donkey to deliver a message.

He used a rock to build His church.

He used broken people who had no business being used.

Maybe—just maybe—some 12-year-old kid heard Kid Rock mention that Bible sitting in their house gathering dust.

Maybe he mentioned that Man who died on a cross.

And maybe it started a fire in that kid.

Maybe that lost kid gets found.

Maybe he becomes the next Pastor Lance who tells another broken kid: "Today's a new day."

I'm not a purebred. I'm a mutt.

And I'm grateful God uses mutts.

Because if He only used the polished ones, none of us would be here.

The nuns found me.

Pastor Lance found me.

God used every broken piece.

And now I write for every lost kid the church wants to gatekeep.

Every essay. Every truth they won't touch. Every time I call out performance Christianity while pastors stay silent.

I'm writing for the kid I was.

Full story + why I can't do this alone in next tweet