All posts in category Bible study

Paperback Bible

I did not grow up in a Bible-reading home. Indeed, the only Bible we owned was a decaying, brown-paged Gideon’s Bible my father swiped from a hotel room.

It anchored the bookshelf on the far right, pushed back and half hidden by the more important family books: a dog-eared, spine-broken atlas and a fat unappealing dictionary. The rest of the shelf held The Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia my mother purchased one volume at a time at the grocery store.

I was in and out of that shelf all the time looking up everything in the encyclopedia but I never touched the moldering pages of the holy book. Raised in a pseudo-Catholic household, I somehow knew I wasn’t supposed to read the Bible, so I didn’t.

The summer I was fifteen, however, I went on a Madeleine L’Engle kick and read everything she wrote that the local library owned. More than once, L’Engle commented about the need for readers and writers to read the Bible so they could better understand the literary culture of western civilization.

That sounded like a plan to me, so I dug out the old Bible and took it with us on a camping trip to Canada. When I had exhausted all the other books I brought with me, I opened it up to the first chapter of the New Testament and ran into all those begats.

I didn’t even last one chapter, slammed the musty volume shut and reread another Madeleine L’Engle.

But later that year, I started playing volleyball with some Lutherans around the corner from my house. One thing led to another, and I began to attend their Wednesday night Bible study. Obviously, I needed a Bible.

The old stolen Bible was unappetizing, but someone in the household had acquired a paperback called Good News for Modern Man. It was just the New Testament, but that was okay because we were studying the book of Romans, which someone told me was in the New Testament.

I opened it up. I loved the line drawings. I saw all those begats, but they looked so much more appealing in large type with simple drawings and white pages.

Okay, like my father I stole it, but I read that Bible, so easy on the eyes and soul,  for the next year.

A cheap paperback (even now it only costs $7.45), the binding broke and pages fell out. I held it together with a green rubber band.

I found that Good News for Modern Man tonight, still on a shelf but with the rubber band long disintegrated. In between the pages, some of which were turned upside down when last stuffed between the shiny cover, was a written reflection from the first retreat I attended.

I committed in writing on that retreat to read the Bible and to pray.

And so I have. For 40 years.

Madeleine L’Engle may or not have approved of that paperback Bible. She urged English  majors in particular, to read the gorgeous words in the 1621 King James version. The 1966 Good News for Modern Man gave me the stories, paraphrases of the original translation, not the beautiful words.

But it was enough to start with it and those words, sharper than a two-edged sword have not returned void.

After all, it’s the Who found in the Word that’s important, not the how I read about Him.

What was your first Bible like?

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by michelle on March 20, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by michelle on March 20, 2012

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On Books and Baby Christians

I became a Christian while attending Trinity Lutheran Church. A Lutheran church was a great spot for me because it married a love of music, learning and history and focused it on God. While the church of my youth also spoke of God and Jesus, tradition was more important than explanation.

I needed both.

I was unaware of religious books beyond the Bible, and my knowledge of the Word of God was sketchy at best. I started there, of course, and attended Bible study under the very capable leading of the  smart, funny, and devoted Mrs. Hahn. But this particular church had a bookstore, and there I first saw books about Christianity. Up front was the best-selling The Christian Family, written by Larry Christenson–the pastor of the church.

I obviously saw Pastor Christenson’s lime green book around a lot, but there was another that intrigued me more. Also in paperback though with a dark green cover, the title alone caught my attention along with the author’s complex name: The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I just liked the sound of that name sloshing around in my mouth.

I was not a theology-minded person even as a teenager, so I didn’t get around to tackling Bonhoeffer’s tome until my twentieth summer when I traveled to Europe with just a few English books to read. There, by the shores of Lake Como, I dipped into a way of thinking and a call to devotion the like of which I had never dreamed  After all, what do you do with the pointed words: “Christ bids you come and die”?

Even then the pages of my book were brown and spotted with age, the paragraphs long and dense. The concepts were not extraordinary but the application required much thought. What did I really believe? How far did my devotion to this Jesus go? Was I ready and willing to die to my self–particularly in unfair situations?

I didn’t know, but Bonhoeffer’s siren words and his powerful life story, drew me to a spiritual place far removed from the pettiness of my surroundings.

All these years later, what remains most vivid from The Cost of Discipleship is the concept of cheap grace.

“Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

It was a good lesson to learn as a young Christian because time and again, I’ve been forced to confront my sinful nature when I want to slide into the ease of cheap grace. But grace is only cheap to me– Jesus paid with his life that grace might be extended to my sinful heart every time I ask. A powerful, life-saving, humbling and enormous gift, that grace. And one that I can cheapen into trash by a casual attitude or the flip words, “Jesus will save me no matter what.”

Jesus loves me; this I know. I know because the Bible–a book–tells me so.

The book of John explains Jesus was the Word with God, who is God. Almost like a book–and the only real food a baby Christian, or any Christian, needs.

Thanks be to God.

 

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by michelle on January 20, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by michelle on January 20, 2012

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Which is the Good Point of View?

I was at a writer’s conference last week and so I’ve been thinking about point of view.

Among writers, point of view is one of the primary things to consider when writing a novel—determining whose eyes and thoughts to use in telling the story.

But point of view is important in real life as well, particularly when looking at two important passages in Scripture. A verse I think about often is Job 2:10 “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” (NIV)

That’s a pretty-in-your-face verse, but if we take it apart and look at it from a different point of view, it seems friendlier.

Let’s start with that word good, particularly in the infamous context of Romans 8:28, “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Works for the good of those who love him–who is determining what is good in this verse? God himself.

You know, the creator of the universe, the God before all time, who loves you with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms. That God. He decides what is good for YOU.

Now, I might think winning a million dollars in the lottery would be a good thing for me. But would it, really?

Would that be God’s idea of good for ME? Or is that MY idea of what is good?

But what if winning a million dollars meant my family began squabbling over the money? What if my family was destroyed because of all that money?

What then would be good? Winning the money or not winning the money?

I’d go with not winning, how about you?

(For the record, if someone gave me a million dollars I would pay off the student loans of all the young people I know and contribute the rest toward the mortgage at our church.)

Of course, we should move on to trouble, but again, by whose standard? Mine or God’s. And if God uses trouble in my life to move me back to him, could you almost argue that trouble, too, can be good?

These verses bring us back to one central truth: do I trust God with my life or do I think I know better?

If God, who is outside of time and looks down from heaven at the whole of my life in one glance, determines something is good for me, even if it doesn’t feel good to me, who really has the better point of view to decide on what is good for me?

It pains me to admit it some times, but I’ll vote with God.

I call this “turning the prism,” to look at things from a slightly different angle. Sometimes if I just alter the way I look at something–try to see it from God’s point of view, or even from that of a family member–the definition of good can change.

And usually, sad to say, for the better.

Thanks be to God.

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by michelle on October 5, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, Faith, God's love, Life's challenges
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Posted by michelle on October 5, 2011

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VBS: It’s Not Just for Little Kids

Vacation Bible School (VBS) is a big deal at our church. We’re not a particularly large Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, regularly worshipping about 325. But we go all out the week after Father’s Day each June and open our church to our community for fun, games, Bible teaching and great food.

We’ve averaged 180 children so far this week and today after my gig with the pre-VBS children of teachers group, I sat in the back for the opening. We’re using a beach theme this summer and the music is reminiscent of the Beach Boys: engaging, easy to learn and full of life. The pastor played the guitar and was backed up by the youth minister and two high school girls. When the music started and the hand motions began, I sat up straight. Was that who I thought it was smiling, laughing and waving her arms widely? And who was the other girl?

I was so surprised, I asked someone, who confirmed my eyes were working fine.

Except my eyes weren’t seeing well at that point because I was crying.

I’d never seen the one girl so animated before–that’s why I didn’t recognize her. She’s a quiet, pretty girl carrying some burdens. Our church loves her and has reached out to her, but she always seemed a bit aloof to me until today.

And there she was, bouncing on the stage and leading the singing. My heart leapt with joy to see her so happy.

The other girl stopped by one day several years ago, looking for a volunteer slot for a school requirement. The church secretary, who is good about finding spots for kids, had something for her–a task that caused her to interact with the church kids her same age. She’s been coming to youth group for quite awhile now and sang with gusto this morning.

And this is what I love about our church and VBS. The kids attend as students until they reach junior high, and then they volunteer.  As teens, they help in class, act in the skit, play music, walk babies, serve food, laugh through recreation and when it’s all over, gather together for lunch and an activity of their own. This year we have forty-nine teens volunteering.

My own daughter attended as an elementary school student, acted in the play, worked the sound board, and helped with recreation until last year when she graduated from high school. She took my slot as the recreation director for the older kids and has been running relays and blowing her late grandmother’s PE whistle ever since. She’s a natural and the kids love her.

Once you hit college age, you’re one of the adults and you can work in the craft department, take a class or hang out with the nursery babies. It doesn’t matter how old you are after that–we’ve got great-grandmothers churning out the food in the kitchen.

Isn’t that part of the role of VBS? To teach us about Jesus, of course, but also to provide us with opportunities to share that love with our community, serve one another and simply fellowship?

I can’t really tell you right now–my eyes are misting up yet again.

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by michelle on June 23, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, God's love, Laughter
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Posted by michelle on June 23, 2011

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Inside or Outside the Will of God?

What does your life look like if you’re outside of the will of God?

I’ve pondered this question over the years–usually when some crisis or another has hit and I’m suddenly not sure I’ve been in the right place or done the right thing. Could the calamity befalling me be the result of my missing what God wanted me to do?

With the horrific tornado in Joplin, Missouri, combined with the terrible tornadoes across the southern US this season, added to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, not to mention the record snow, flooding, cold weather and a host of other natural calamities in 2011, is anyone even talking about the possibility Someone may be trying to get our attention?

Is it possible some of us are outside of God’s will in our life?

Our Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church pastor from 30 years ago, the Reverend Ronald Gauss, talked during one service about how annoying it is when you can’t find the scissors, lose the car keys, forget to pack a lunch. That’s actually a good sign, he said, because it means you’re probably doing what God wants you to do and Satan is trying to trip you up–to keep your eyes off the task God has appointed by frustrating you.

I think of Ron’s comments when stupid irritations crop up over and over again, often asking, “what could I possibly be doing for the Kingdom of God that Satan wants to distract me from?”

But that’s not the same thing as wondering if I’m outside of God’s will to such an extent that He is using extreme measures to catch my attention.

I remember another time in Connecticut, when I knelt at the altar and prayed: “Lord, I’m drifting. I need you to do something to capture my attention and refocus me on You.”

Several weeks later my children, mother-in-law, and I were in an automobile accident; the car was totaled and the children rode an ambulance to the hospital. He got my attention. I felt distinctly like we had been spared our lives and my worship was far more intense than it had been in some time.

But was I outside of the will of God? Or did I just need some realignment of my priorities? Does it make a difference?

When we turn to the Bible and look at the life of David, a man after God’s own heart, we see instances where he clearly was outside of God’s will. What was the result?

King David’s behavior with Bathsheba, wife of the soldier Uriah, obviously was outside of God’s will. David’s subsequent chicanery to cover his sin–made obvious in Bathsheba’s pregnancy–caused Uriah’s death and that of other good soldiers.

Throughout the attempted cover-up time, David felt harried. He grew frustrated at Uriah’s ethical behavior. He tried to tempt Uriah into violating the soldier’s beliefs and his men. David grew angry. He got drunk. I see no indication the king tried to talk to God–he was avoiding God.

The good news is, the Lord loved David enough to send the prophet Nathan to confront King David with his sin and urge him to repentance.  When David repented, he returned to the will of God–a broken man with a contrite heart, who had more griefs to bear.

David knew he was wrong in the Bathsheba-Uriah story. He avoided God.

Is God trying to get our attention with these extreme “natural disasters?” How would we know?

Can I be outside of the will of God, if I pray, read the Bible, and submit to the spiritual authorities in my life? Am I likely to be outside of the will of God if I ask Him to direct my steps?

I’m not so sure I’m outside of God’s will in my present circumstances–but I do know the emotional longing to climb into God’s lap and just sit.

The good news is, His lap is always open ready to receive me. Loving and forgiving me–and you–that’s definitely the will of God.

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by michelle on May 27, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, Faith, God's love, Life's challenges, Prayer, Spiritual issues, Uncategorized
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Posted by michelle on May 27, 2011

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An Old Lesson: Take 2,367

I’ve been working off a master “to do” list for over a month now, life has been that busy. I had six writing deadlines to finish on April 1, alone, and felt a lot of pressure to finish up before I leave on a quick trip.

Stress had built in countless ways.

It’s all ironic since my 2011 resolution was to put some “margins” back into my life. Maybe after Easter . . .

I read Richard Swenson’s book Margin, probably twenty years ago and the idea resonated: we need to make space in our life for down time, and for an emotional area to “spill into” when we have crises in our life. God did not design us to run at adrenaline speed all the time. He designed our bodies, souls, hearts and minds to take time and rest. Remember the Sabbath?

I did remember the Sabbath Thursday morning when I rushed through aerobics, dashed down breakfast, hurried to walk the dog with a friend, zipped in for a shower, got myself signed into a hotline, and then looked at my computer. I had one day to finish off a lot of stuff. My heart beat faster. I also needed to pray and read the Bible. What to do first?

Psalm 37:5 says, “ Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.”

My husband knew all about the pressures in my life, because he saw the list and he heard me talk about them. God knew them too, for the same reason. But had I really sat down to listen to his advice?

I picked up my devotionals: My Utmost for His Highest, Praying for Your Husband (I pray the prayer at the end of the chapter that corresponds to the numerical date) and my Bible. I read my way through the important parts (!), and then sat to listen.

Birds whistled in the yard outside, the budding leaves of the Japanese maple stirred in a breeze. The dog shifted, an ambulance went by and my soul eased.

I didn’t set the timer for an alloted time to pray–which I’d been doing lately. I decided to let the Spirit take me where it would. People slipped across my brain and I prayed for them. Ideas floated past and I let them sink. It felt heavenly.

When I got out of my chair an hour later, I had a new idea for the manuscript that really needed to be finished–one I hadn’t contemplated before. I knew what I was doing with it and where it was going. I still had to sit down and pound the keys for six hours, but it felt so much more right.

I wasn’t buffeted by “to dos,” anymore.

The next day I wrote the last five things in two hours–it flowed.

You know the drill.

“Cast your cares upon him, seek ye first the kingdom of God. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.”

He’s a good God, who loves us even when we leave him little margin to spare. When we crawl into his lap, he embraces us, dusts us off and sends us back along the paths he has ordained for us.

Thanks be to God.

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by michelle on April 2, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by michelle on April 2, 2011

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Turning the Prism: Looking at Our Circumstances Through God’s Lens

We’re all familiar with the Scripture passage from James 1:2 that tells us to “count it all joy when you meet various trials.” We know from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 to “rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

But how do you do that when the circumstances don’t look very good?

How can we join the patriarch Joseph and declare to those who would harm us, “you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good?” (Genesis 50:20)

A lot of our ability to do so comes from trying to see our circumstances from a slightly different angle, a different point of view than our own. We cannot know the mind of God necessarily, but we can submit our hopes, attitudes and reactions to God and ask Him to reason with us and help us have faith about our situation.

Let’s look at two stories: one from the past and one from the present.

Mary and Joseph.

Nine months pregnant with her first child and probably a teenager, Mary journeyed 80 miles with her husband Joseph from her home town of Nazareth all the way to Bethlehem. How many of you would have let your daughter do that? No attendants, no midwife, newlyweds. How many people at the time understood the importance of Mary making the trip? And then she went into labor and gave birth in a manger? As a parent, wouldn’t you have questioned the wisdom of all this?

Why did God allow His son to be treated like this? There was a greater purpose–Jesus’ birthplace was foretold in Micah 5:2. Mary giving birth in a humble setting fulfilled a prophecy:

2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”

Hillary and the Car

Our young friend Hillary wanted to serve the Lord and moved to Santa Rosa to live with us in order to prepare for what she hopes someday will be a ministry to Italians. She bought her dream car, started taking Italian classes at the JC, signed up to go to Florence in the spring semester abroad program and found a job.

Everything went well, except she never could get enough hours at Starbucks to save the money she’d need. She had enough to pay for the semester abroad, but she needed sufficient funds to make the car payment and pay the insurance for the months she was gone. She was very concerned.

In November, she went home to Ukiah for a visit and on her way back, a deer ran onto 101, hit her car and totaled it. She was safe, but very upset.

“What am I going to do now?” she asked as we stood around the kitchen trying to make sense of what had happened to her.

Believing there’s always more than one way to look at things, I tried to find a positive in the situation. “Just think,” I flippantly said, “at least you won’t have a car payment anymore.”

That didn’t make her happy. But, the more I thought about it, an idea formed. A car is expensive to own. Hillary was leaving in a couple months. We had an extra car. She could simply not buy a car, use ours, and then wouldn’t have to pay for the insurance and car payment she didn’t have. Had God answered her need? Albeit in an inconvenient way?

That’s exactly what she did. She’ll tell you now, it was the best thing that could have happened. She didn’t buy another car for TWO YEARS because she’d learned how expensive it was to own a car, even her dream car. What had seemed a disaster turned into a blessing. She just had to accept on faith that God was at work in a way she couldn’t see.

Hebrews 11:1-2 in The Message, tells us, “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.”

And faith is what we need to take into our situations–particularly when things look bleak, confusion or unclear.

What sort of faith? That everything is known and directed by God.

He tells us in Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the thoughts [plans/ NIV] that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Romans 8:28:  And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

The key is to trust God’s plans and His purpose for our lives. We also need to recognize that we don’t have all the facts, nor do we necessarily see the facts the same way He does.

Can you try this in just some minor events in your life? When you adjust your sights, how does the picture change?

1 Comment
by michelle on March 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, God's Prism, Life's challenges, Spiritual issues
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Posted by michelle on March 25, 2011

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If It’s Written Down, It Must be True.

My third son always dashed into the house after school with the same words on his lips: “What’s for dinner?”

Invariably, I’d look up from the computer with a woozy brain–still caught in the  1830′s Texas, 1720′s Virginia, or even a mere 1918 Utah–and feel totally blank.

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

“Dinner,” I’d grope for the concept and finally remember. “I made dinner.”

Stargazer is a scientist. “What are we having?”

I knew I’d made something. I always tried to get dinner done early in the day so I could get lost in the past. “It’s in the refrigerator.”

“What is it?” He’s always practical.

A wave of the hand, “Just look and see.”

Sometimes if he’d bring the casserole over, I could actually recognize what it was, and that always made him happy.

Stargazer’s a stickler for lists. If it’s written down, it has to be true. Earlier in his life, I use to post a list on the refrigerator of what I planned to cook for dinner. It made him feel secure. He could rush in and examine it. “It says here, Wednesday: enchilada pie. I love enchilada pie. That’s great.”

Except one day I substituted macaroni and cheese for the enchilada pie written on the list.

He was outraged. “It says right here, enchilada pie. You aren’t supposed to make macaroni and cheese when it says enchilada pie.”

He marched me over and stabbed the list with his index finger to prove what it said.

Flabbergasted, I tried to explain the list was just a suggestion of what I could cook. I reserved the right to make substitutions.

“That’s not the way it works, Mom,” Stargazer insisted. “When you write it down, you have to do it.”

That’s when I stopped posting my meal planning list. My looseness with the facts created too many moral dilemmas for my son. Of course it also meant he got frustrated when I couldn’t remember what I’d made for dinner, but at least I wasn’t misrepresenting my plans.

I’m impressed even now with my son’s fealty to the written word, particularly when I compare it to how casually I treat words. And I thought of him today when I read about the Twitter libel suits.

I’m apparently not the only one who has forgotten the power of the pen, or in the Twitter case, the text message. Words carry heft and have meaning. Writing them down and broadcasting them has consequences. The woman paid over $400,000 dollars after she tweeted a rant about a woman’s business.

God talks about writing throughout the Bible, telling people at least 80 times to write something down.  God directs Moses to write down words on his behalf. “Word” itself appears over 950 times. 1 John talks about Jesus as “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

I need to pay more attention to what I write down. I need to believe the words I write and stand behind them. Stargazer was right. If I wrote it down, it behooved me to do it.

1 Comment
by michelle on March 14, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by michelle on March 14, 2011

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Unto the Next Generation

My adorable grandchildren are here for a visit and while it’s certainly a privilege to have them, it’s also sobering me during a curious time in my life.

I’m teaching in the book of Psalms this quarter and I’ve noticed how often generations, descendants, and other references to family lines, turn up. The immediacy of King David’s emotions make it hard to believe he expressed his thoughts to God 3,000 years ago. And yet Psalm 90:4 tells us “A thousand years in your [God's] sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” The sweep of time to God is a blink of an eye, while my personal eyes tremble at the enormity of the universe.

The adorable grandchildren love the 120-year-old reed pump organ in our living room and today it, too, reminded me poignantly of the span of time. My great-great-grandmother gave the organ to my grandmother in 1914. My grandmother gave the organ to me. Today as I pointed out the two women in the photo above the organ, I realized my granddaughter was pushing the keys. The stretch of time from a blond blue-eyed Danish woman born in 1848 to a blond blue-eyed American girl born a year ago today, felt very short.

The Psalms tell us that eternity awaits those who believe, those who have faith in God, those who accept Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as the cornerstone of truth. Jesus tells us in John 14 that He goes ahead of us to heaven where there is room for all who believe in Him, “and if it were not so, I would have told you so.” I cling to those verses when my life seems so flimsy and fleeting.

I’m not sure I’ll ever see my granddaughter’s daughter and certainly not her granddaughter, but the cycle of life will push forward. As I rocked her this morning, I prayed that her life would be full of trust and faith in the One who has loved her from before the dawn of time.

It’s the only really valuable thing I can give her.

Other than an old organ and my love.

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by michelle on February 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, Faith, Fear, God's love
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Posted by michelle on February 18, 2011

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My Bible study valentine

I spend Tuesday mornings with a select group of women. One is younger than me, but the rest are my elders by a considerable number of years. They are friendly, devout and wise. I love them.

I’m the leader of the Bible study. We use the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s Lifelight studies and we have a terrific time together. We pray for each other, laugh together, go out to lunch and they’re quite vocal about my life. “Don’t clean your house. You’ve got better things to do, hire a housekeeper.” Or, my favorite, “Don’t cook dinner. Have your husband take you out.”

When I report this advice to my husband, he sketches a salute and says, “Yes, ladies.”

Six years ago, Valentine’s Day fell on a Tuesday morning. I wanted to celebrate the love these women have for the Lord, for each other, and for me. But how? Isn’t Valentine’s Day really designed for young lovers? Half the women have outlived their husbands.

My scheming prayer partner and I put together a surprise. Before we got down to the brass tacks of study–or at least the prayer list–I passed around a Starbucks menu. “Since everyone knows Valentine’s Day is for teenagers like Romeo and Juliet, I thought we’d celebrate like girls. The drinks are on my husband, choose one!”

None had ever been to Starbucks before. “What is a ‘La-tay?” cackled Bea–87 at the time and still going strong.

“Coffee with a foamy milk on top and a sprinkling of nutmeg,” I explained. “You can get it with soy, non-fat milk, or decaf.”

“Decaf? Why waste the coffee? And what’s foamy milk?”

Several twisted their tongues trying to pronounce cappuccino. “Don’t they sell a simple cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” I said. “But try something new. Giggle when you drink it and pretend you’re a flirting 13.”

Ginnie looked down her nose and through her specs at me. “I was never that young.”

Eventually we got the order sorted, my prayer partner went to the coffee shop, and we read through the Bible study. It was sweet.

And so was the coffee once it arrived. “Ooh, who can drink this?”

“How do you say this name? Frappuccino? Never again.” Justine shuddered.

My mocha was just fine, thank you very much. I like that combination of bitter with the sweet. No whipped cream.

We were studying the book of Acts that year–focusing on how the believers took the good news of Jesus’ resurrection throughout the world. We marveled at how the followers of Jesus wanted to stay huddled together in Jerusalem, praying safely behind closed doors, clinging to what they knew. But events forced them out of their comfort zone and they spread throughout the countryside taking the good news with them. Buoyed on by the joy of Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples had to sample a new way of life. Paul’s life in particular was one of bitter challenges, sweetened and buoyed by the Jesus he met on the road to Damascus.

Just like the lives of my fellow students.

We had fun on Valentine’s Day six years ago, because of the love bestowed on us by a benevolent God. His love brought the Bible study ladies together to learn about him. And because we’ve studied His word together so long, my wise ladies– who have seen and done so much– trusted me with strange sounding drinks of curiously doctored coffee.

“Too sweet,” they giggled as they gathered up their Bibles. “But happy Valentine’s Day to you.”

And you, too. :-)

1 Comment
by michelle on February 14, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible study, Laughter
Tagged , , ,

Posted by michelle on February 14, 2011

http://michelleule.com/2011/02/14/my-bible-study-valentine/

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