At the Crossroads: A Monologue Collection

By Carla Friesen-Martin

John the Baptist sits in a dungeon, wondering, “Was Jesus really the One?”

Knowing she can no longer hide her son, Jochebed struggles to place her baby, Moses, into a basket and his life into God’s hands.

Joseph battles feelings of humiliation and betrayal while wondering what he could possibly offer the Messiah.

Most of us have never had superhuman strength or slain a giant with a slingshot. But like the heroes of the Bible, we eventually all find ourselves at a crossroads where we need to make hard choices. To obey God or turn away. To trust God or give in to fear. To accept God’s sovereignty, even when we don’t understand Him.

The monologues in At the Crossroads portray familiar people from the Bible at crossroads of their own, facing challenges and choices that in many ways mirror our own.

Let their choices inspire yours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Sep 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781486617319

Book preview

AT THE CROSSROADS

Copyright © 2018 by Carla Friesen-Martin

All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

EPUB Version: 978-1-4866-1731-9

Word Alive Press

131 Cordite Road, Winnipeg, MB R3W 1S1

www.wordalivepress.ca

Cataloguing in Publication may be obtained through Library and Archives Canada

This book is dedicated with much love to Glen, Mikaela, and Samantha.

Acknowledgments

This monologue collection is the culmination of more than twenty years of exploring the lives of people in the Bible through writing and drama. I’m grateful to the past and present pastors of the Ministerial Association of Williams Lake, and to the Women’s Ministries groups of Calvary Church and the Williams Lake Evangelical Free Church for their encouragement to write, and opportunities to present, many of these monologues.

Many thanks to Marina and the team at Word Alive Press for guiding me through the process of making this book a reality, and to my aunt, Margaret Friesen, who was also instrumental in making this possible. Thanks, too, to my brother, Kevin Friesen, for the photo shoot.

Most of all, my deepest thanks to my husband, Glen, for your love, support, and encouragement, and for your gentle nudges to take this plunge. And to Mikaela and Samantha for putting up with your mother showing up in public wearing funny costumes, and still being willing to be seen with me.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Not What I Had Planned

2. All I Have to Offer

3. Plans and Preparations

4. Good Friday

5. Easter Sunday

6. Take this Cup

7. Forgiven

8. My Lord and My God

9. A Stranger at God’s Table

10. Trusting God in Uncertain Times

11. Is He the One?

12. Running from God

13. Out of the Shadows

14. I Don’t Understand You

15. Vision Revision

16. As for Me and My Household

17. What Will You Do With Jesus?

About the Author

Endnotes

Introduction

One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was the Bible. I still remember the day they bought me my very own, just about as soon as they thought I’d be able to read it for myself. Even before that, Bible stories had always been a part of my life.

Having those stories and truths ingrained in me has been a tremendous gift. However, the downside to being steeped in the Bible from day one, if there is a downside, is that you start to read every story with the ending in mind. And when you do that, the people in the Bible become characters—not real people, but people who are qualitatively different than you or me.

I don’t know about you, but I’m no epic hero. I’m not Moses commanding the Red Sea to part or Mary being handpicked to carry the Messiah. I’ve never had superhuman strength or slain a giant with a slingshot. (If you’ve ever seen me try to do a chin-up or throw a baseball, you just know that ain’t gonna happen.)

With familiarity came the sense that while I could learn lessons from the characters in the Bible, I could never really identify with them, because, cultural differences aside, they’re not quite like the rest of us.

Writing these pieces changed my view on that. It started as simply a way to view a few familiar stories in a new way, to imagine what the characters’ stories looked like from their perspectives, while staying as true as I could to the biblical text.

When I started putting together the larger collection, it struck me that there was a common thread: each of the people whose stories I was trying to tell were standing at a crossroads. Faced with a challenge or crisis of faith, each one had to make a decision—to obey God or turn away from him, to trust God or give in to fear, to accept God’s sovereignty, even when they didn’t understand him, or keep trying to call the shots themselves.

Those are moments with which I can identify. I suspect you can, too.

The more I wrote, the more it occurred to me that each of these characters was a real person. (Well, except Celeste. But that piece was too much fun to leave out.) None of them knew how their stories were going to end when they stood at the crossroads, and they didn’t know how their choices would become part of God’s greater story of redemption. But each one faced moments when God called them to choose the path of faith, of trust—just like when God calls you and me to make decisions that often seem insignificant, but also sometimes overwhelming. We have all at times found ourselves standing at a crossroads.

Some of the pieces in this collection depict people looking back on the decisions they’ve made. Others stand on the verge of taking a leap of faith, and their stories may leave the audience guessing as to which choice they will make.

My prayer is that as you prepare and present these pieces, you and your audience will connect in a new way with real people from the Bible. May you be encouraged and strengthened by their stories when you find yourself standing at a crossroads.

1.

Not What I Had Planned

Mary

Cast: 1 female

Props: None

It was nothing like I’d planned.

Growing up in Nazareth, my life was pretty much the same as my friends’. We spent our days learning to keep house and look after children. We worshiped at the synagogue and learned about our heritage as God’s chosen people. Our