Erin Newton - The Park Forum

November 5, 2025November 3, 2025

Always the Rock of Refuge

Links for today’s readings:

Nov 5 Read: 2 Kings 18 Listen: (6:52) Read: Psalms 70-71 Listen: (3:29)

Scripture Focus: Psalm 71:3a, 14

3 Be my rock of refuge,
to which I can always go…
14 As for me, I will always have hope;
I will praise you more and more.

Reflection: Always the Rock of Refuge

By Erin Newton

I remember sitting in the NICU with my twins hoping against the continual onslaught of bad news. Hope was hard to grasp; anxiety became a constant companion. I assumed that I would always feel that way.

Always. There is a constant and enduring essence to the word “always.” It is expected. It is reliable. For me, it was constant dread, then I latched onto Psalm 71 for dear life.

I needed a rock of refuge on day 1 of the NICU. I needed refuge on day 30, day 75, day 150 and on that last day, number 241. I read this psalm every day. It was my chant as I walked into the hospital. It was the prayer when I called each morning. It was the thought that helped me drift off to sleep.

I went to that rock of refuge again and again. And from that continual, enduring, and reliable source of refuge, I found hope.

Our story is a happy one. Just this week we celebrated the twins’ ninth birthday. Anxiety, doubt, and fear would have me think that maybe the Psalm 71 chant somehow guaranteed a positive outcome. But that’s not how Scripture and meditation work. It is not some magical spell (despite how much my dread wanted a solution). Prayers anchor our hearts against the ebb and flow of life.

For me, anxiety and fear continue to cling to the edges of my mind. I was right; I do always feel this way. I haven’t been freed of pain and suffering. New crises emerge. But what has changed is my relationship with that rock of refuge. I know he is reliable. I know he’s an open door for me any day or night. I know I can reach him with a faint whisper. I know I can reach him with a heartfelt scream.

While pain and suffering (and anxiety and dread) are always with me, so is hope. Verse 20 reminds us of the reality of life: “Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.”

Our life is restored when we learn that we can run back to God, our rock of refuge. Maybe we stumble and crawl, but this return to the rock is a defiant effort against darkness. God, our rock is always there, even in the depths.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy Name we put our trust.
Let your loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you. — Psalm 33.20-22

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Wholeness for the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

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Links for today’s readings:

Oct 30 Read: 2 Kings 11-12 Listen: (7:38) Read: Psalms 60-61 Listen: (2:27)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — Thanks for this reflection. I learned about kintsugi from Mako Fujimura when he gave me a tour of his studio years ago. I love the theology of this practice. I agree that looking at something that was broken but is being used again is beautiful. But the practice of kintsugi showcases the brokenness and then renders each crack as a new work of beauty. Such grace, joy, creativity, and redemption.

Like last year, we will repost all Christmas-themed Readers’ Choice posts together in one week. We pray our hearts are prepared to make room for Christ this coming Advent season. This post was originally published on December 9, 2024, based on readings from Isaiah 9.2, 6.

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 9.2, 6

2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Reflection: Wholeness for the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

The thing about Advent is that it is just a waiting game. We know to wait with hope for Jesus’s birth. We know that we will receive love through him. We know that joy will follow this grand event. But what does the peace of Advent offer us?

What are we hoping to find in peace? The feeling of hopelessness, that’s familiar. The heartache of being unloved, we know what that’s like. The weight of sadness and lack of joy is a regular routine. What is life without peace? It is chaotic, broken, raging, tumultuous, scary, fear-driven, uncertain.

Peace is a noun and, within the original Hebrew context, it came from a verb meaning “wholeness” or “complete.” Peace also carries other connotations such as calmness or freedom from conflict. But in the most basic essence of the term—peace is that which fills all voids.

So when Isaiah proclaims the coming child who is a counselor, deity, and father—he is also a prince of wholeness.

The gift of the season is Someone who makes things whole. He mends tears. He binds wounds. He fills chasms. He makes all that is insufficient sufficient.

There is a Japanese technique for mending broken pottery—kintsugi. Many have seen the beautiful pieces that were formerly broken shards of bowls or plates, delicately repaired using golden lacquer. The gold seams not only repair that which was broken but reinvent the beauty of the vessel. The bowl, albeit beautiful as it was before it was broken, becomes an exquisite piece of artistry in kintsugi.

The peace of Advent is like these mended pots. The peace of God is a promise of mending, repairing, and completing all that was broken or lacking. But it is more than just taking the pieces of our lives and putting them back into working order. The peace of God is reinventing our lives, binding the pieces that make us who we are and then shining the golden rays of Himself amongst the pieces.

Isaiah speaks of the people walking in the darkness, living in deep darkness. But the light breaks through. The radiance of Christ, an infant born in a lowly place, illuminates all that they could not see. It is the wholeness of life and light that overcomes the darkness here.

With the Holy Spirit, we no longer lack anything. The pieces have been spiritually mended. The golden seams are already there.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

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Conflict-Free Holidays — Readers’ Choice

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 29 Read: 2 Kings 10 Listen: (6:30) Read: Psalms 58-59 Listen: (3:32)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — Thanks for this reflection. My father would agree…What a great way for the King of Kings to enter the world.

Scripture Focus: John 14.26-27

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Reflection: Conflict-Free Holidays — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

Jesus was born during the Pax Romana—the peace of Rome. It was a period between wars and a time of relative prosperity. Peace is nearly always thought of as the antithesis to conflict or war. And the Bible refers to peace as the future hope during the midst of pain and suffering.

When we think about God coming to dwell among us, the peace of Advent usually includes the vision of a conflict-free eternity. It is this Prince of Peace who brings the promise to eliminate combat and end all struggles.

We long for the days without strife and without war. It is an age-old plea. The psalmist cries out, “Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (Ps. 120.6-7).

Not only does peace bring us wholeness, it is meant to bring us freedom from conflict. But that is far from reality. We enter this Advent season with wars raging across the oceans, conflicts brewing among friends and family, war and strife growing between neighbors—we are a far cry from peace it seems.

The baby lying in a manger would become a man who warned that peace would not always be reality. The cost of following Christ may mean division among friends, families, and neighbors. It is the sword that He warned was coming to disrupt so-called peace. Sometimes the conflict we face is because we have chosen to follow Christ, and the so-called peace of our world was simply a dishonest harmony.

So how do we wait this week meditating on the peace of Advent? I think we look to Christ’s birth as the inauguration of the future peace. It is the “already but not yet” peace we are promised. The gears are set in motion even when the grinding clamor of war reverberates worldwide. The first peace to be won was that within our souls. And it continues to win the war of souls.

And then we see the peace he has left with us. The peace he promised would be with us is a non-earthly peace, peace mediated through the Holy Spirit. Yes, national wars and domestic battles continue today. But peace is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is by His power we can seek peace, and sometimes, win peace. Let us seek peace and wait expectantly.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

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October 28, 2025October 22, 2025

Reconciliation and the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 28 Read: 2 Kings 9 Listen: (6:32) Read: Psalms 56-57 Listen: (3:11)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Barbara, TN — Yes! We pray that prayer at the end and praise him for calling us! Thank you.

Peter — I’m grateful for this reminder of how much we need God to miraculously intervene in our lives to accomplish what he calls us to…I need to remember that it takes a miracle for any one of us to do what He has called us to do. I’d been meditating on 2 Peter 1:3-11 and the phrase “so that through them [the precious and very great promises of God] you may become partakers of the divine nature”. Praise God for allowing us to partake in himself!

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 2:17

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

Romans 5.1

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Reflection: Reconciliation and the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

This week, we have looked at peace within ourselves and among those around us. Divine peace enables a full sense of our identity and the ability to resolve or avoid conflict, to restore and uphold justice, and to calmly rest in his providence. The greatest peace bestowed upon us is God’s goodwill toward man. The peace of Advent is our reconciliation to him.

Peace between God and humanity is perhaps where we should have started. But in our busy and stressful lives, we want to see peace first in our anxious minds or among our tiresome friends and family. We’re tempted to think that if peace can just be established out there, we’d find some peace in here.

Have you ever heard of the vertical and horizontal relationship axes? The horizontal axis is our relationships with those around us. The vertical axis is our personal, solitary relationship with God. They work in tandem at times; our lives with friends and families overflow from our personal relationship with God. And our relationship with God tends to always be in tune with how things are going with those around us.

The peace of Advent covers both axes. We’ve explored the ways divine peace helps us where we are. But even if all outer peace is shattered, we always have peace with God.

Advent points to the intermediary we always needed. Christ is God-made-flesh and God-among-us. The Prince of Peace is not just a bow breaker or sword smelter—he is a bridge builder between Creator and creature.

Meditation on the peace of Advent should lead us to moments of rejoicing in our reconciliation, knowing it is as firm and true and evergreen as He has promised. Sinners in the hands of an angry God? Not anymore.

Advent is the start of the church’s liturgical year and, oddly, the end of our calendric year. I find this rather helpful as we sit in the season of Advent-waiting. In the moments we are afforded to think about hope, peace, joy, and love, we reminisce on how God has worked and expectantly wait on the further revelation in the year to come.

Stay with me in this peaceful moment and meditate on (1) your soul made whole, (2) the resolution of particular conflicts, (3) accountability upheld, (4) relief from a busy mind, and (5) the reality that He calls you “friend.” That is peace.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Tribe Over Truth — Readers’ Choice

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 22 Read: 2 Kings 3 Listen: (4:29) Read: Psalms 48 Listen: (1:28)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — YES! We must choose truth over tribe at all costs. God’s word tells us this in many ways throughout the Bible…Thank you so much for sharing this great word!

This post was originally published on August 6, 2025, based on readings from Judges 20: 12-13, 35-36.

Scripture Focus: Judges 20: 12-13, 35-36

12 The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What about this awful crime that was committed among you? 13 Now turn those wicked men of Gibeah over to us so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel.”

But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.

35 The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and on that day the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords. 36 Then the Benjamites saw that they were beaten.

Reflection: Tribe Over Truth — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

I have stood in that precarious place, watching and waiting to see how people—people I trusted with my story—would respond. Would they believe me? What about the perpetrator’s friends? Whose side would they pick?

The burden of proof for a victim of abuse is almost unbearable. Not only has one endured abuse, but it often falls on the victim to convince others that a wrong has been committed. Sadly, some people choose friendships over accepting the grim reality that a person in their circle has harmed another human being.

When those who should purge such wickedness instead grant it safe harbor, they too become complicit.

After the heinous acts were committed against the woman in Judges 19, a glimmer of hope arises as Israel responds. Envoys were sent to Benjamin to make them aware of what happened “and give them the opportunity to acknowledge the crime, to distance themselves from Gibeah and to ensure that justice was done” (Mary Evans, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary: Judges and Ruth). Now was the community’s chance to stand for what was right, but they chose their tribe over the truth.

War ensued after Benjamin defiantly refused to support the victim. (Some see the Levite’s description of the event as an attempt to cover his own complicit nature and an attempt to make himself the victim of “lost/damaged property.” The woman was clearly the victim here and Israel was right to respond in outrage.)

Let us not forget: The Levite sent proof! Even in this scenario, it is not a question of evidence, but of morality. It is a battle between allegiance to other humans and the justice God demands.

Through Benjamin’s refusal to listen to the envoys and to react in a way that enacted justice, they were choosing either their own collective self-image or choosing to ignore faults for the sake of some past glory they had as a tribe. The motive in Judges 20 is not stated.

What is clear in this story is this: Evil should never be allowed a foothold within the community. This goes beyond abuse. Evil of all kinds cannot be tolerated; God hates unjust scales. This means that God not only hates it when evil is tolerated, but when people discriminate against which kind of evil is punished and which kind is pardoned.

We are called to be a voice for the voiceless. Don’t choose tribe over truth.

Links for today’s readings:

Scripture Focus: Psalm 71:3a, 14

Reflection: Always the Rock of Refuge

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Read more: Embracing Uncertainty

Read more: Discipline for the Anxious

Links for today’s readings:

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 9.2, 6

Reflection: Wholeness for the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

The Lord’s Prayer:

Support Our Work

Many times at the end of the year, funds are low and end-of-year giving is vital to fund the coming year. Donate today to help us in 2026.

https://theparkforum.org/support/

Read more about Truth and Love — Love of Advent

Links for today’s readings:

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Scripture Focus: John 14.26-27

Reflection: Conflict-Free Holidays — Readers’ Choice

The Lord’s Prayer:

Read more about The Arm of Flesh versus the Prince of Peace

Support Our Work

Links for today’s readings:

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 2:17

Romans 5.1

Reflection: Reconciliation and the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

The Lord’s Prayer:

Read more about Peace from Strife — Peace of Advent

Read more about Supporting Our Work

Links for today’s readings:

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Scripture Focus: Judges 20: 12-13, 35-36

Reflection: Tribe Over Truth — Readers’ Choice

Read more: Facing Ugly Truths

Read more: Allowing Injustice to Save Face