A reflection on Acts 1:12–24
Acts 1 gives us a quiet but powerful moment in the early church. Jesus has ascended, and His followers return to Jerusalem, to an upper room filled with waiting, wondering, and prayer. It’s a family gathering of sorts: the eleven remaining apostles, the women who followed Jesus, Mary His mother, and — almost tucked into the end of the text — His brothers.
Jesus’ brothers, who once misunderstood Him, who didn’t believe Him, who likely carried their own mix of frustration, confusion, and ache at their strange sibling, are now gathered in prayer after meeting the Risen Christ. Their story didn’t end in doubt. It ended in redemption.
And right in the middle of this family redemption story, the early church faces a wound: Judas is gone. His betrayal left a vacancy, a grief, a gap in the family of faith. They seek God’s guidance to choose someone to step into the space Judas left behind — not to erase the pain, but to continue the mission Jesus entrusted to them.
Acts 1 is a chapter about redemption in families, healing in community, and the surprising ways Christ meets us.
And that theme echoes in the lives of the writers I’ve been walking with in the Shake Ridge Press cohort — three very different stories, three very different families, one Risen Christ who stepped into each of our lives with redemption.
Each of us needed to meet the Risen Christ.
Fred’s Story: Redemption on a Loading Dock
Fred Dummar spent years as a Green Beret, serving in places most of us only hear about on the news. But it wasn’t in a chapel or a quiet retreat center where he met the Risen Christ. It was on the loading dock of an airplane that had just landed in Iraq.
In a moment heavy with exhaustion, danger, and the weight of responsibility, Christ met him — not with fanfare, but with presence. Redemption found him in a place where hope felt scarce. And it changed the trajectory of his life.
Krista’s Story: Redemption in a Mother’s Heart
Krista Gibson grew up as a Baptist minister’s daughter — the kind of childhood where faith is woven into the wallpaper. But her deepest encounter with Christ didn’t come from sermons or Sunday school.
It came when her oldest son chose a life far different from the one she had imagined for him.
In the ache of watching a child walk a path she didn’t expect, Krista discovered a Savior who sits with mothers in their heartbreak, who redeems family stories in ways we cannot script, and who gently reshapes faith so it becomes lived, not inherited.
My Story: Redemption Through Allen’s Journey
I met Jesus when I was fourteen. But it was Allen’s magical, winding journey to find his father — a journey filled with grief, longing, and unexpected grace — that led me to meet the Risen Christ again in my own sorrow.
When Ron died, I thought I understood grief. But watching Allen search for the father he lost, and witnessing how Christ met him along the way, opened my eyes to a deeper redemption — one that heals not only individuals, but families. One that threads hope through generations. One that meets us in the places we never expected to find Him.
A Family Redeemed
Acts 1 reminds us that Christ redeems families — not by erasing their wounds, but by entering them.
He met His own brothers after the resurrection. He met Fred on a loading dock. He met Krista in a mother’s heartbreak. He met me in grief, through the courage of my son.
And He meets each of us still.
A Closing Prayer
Lord, Thank You for redeeming our families — not by making them perfect, but by entering their imperfections with resurrection power. Redeem our stories the way You redeemed Your own family. Redeem our wounds the way You redeemed the early church. Redeem our children, our parents, our siblings, and our hearts. And teach us to trust that You are still writing redemption into every chapter. Amen.
