A Little About Me & This Blog

A few years prior to 2005, my mother began studying her Bible openly and diligently. I'm not talking about just opening up the Bible and reading. She wrote in the margins, got a set of special pencil highlighters to enliven the pages with color, and spent hours on end working through the Bible's text. I didn't understand why, but as her completed studies started filling up a bookshelf, I kept having the nagging thought, "What am I missing?" I'd been in church every Sunday and Wednesday all my life; I'd done Bible Drills for three years to memorize scripture; I'd read through the whole Bible myself; I'd even taught Sunday School for 6 years--so what more could I really learn that the pastor or my own reading didn't teach me? Besides, who had that much free time to re-read something she had already read before? Some part of me even thought my mother was going a little overboard or that her kind of study was only for super-Christians, not "normal" Christians like me.

In the spring of 2005, I began my first in-depth Bible study. To be honest, I went to the first meeting more to experience the fellowship of other church women than to learn something. Imagine my surprise when by the completion of my first study, my life had been radically transformed in ways I could never have anticipated. With the help of other teachers who showed me how to look at historical context, how to compare word usage throughout the Bible, and how to use my dictionary to see what a word really meant in the original Greek or Hebrew, I began learning about a God and a Saviour that I only thought I knew. His Word that had seemed so cut and dry all my life, that had not been interesting enough for me to want to read it daily, suddenly began coming to life, leaping off the page, and opening up its riches to show me an incredibly deep, complex, too-wonderful-for-me-to-fathom Bible that kept my attention for hours and only left me wanting more.

Since that time, I have never looked back, constantly starting new in-depth studies to learn more, to be encouraged, and to apply the knowledge that I've gleaned from His Word. But, God has been after me for a long time to "do something" to share the riches of His word with others. So, after seeking His will, I have committed to write a short devotional each week and post it to this blog so that each Monday morning, you'll have something encouraging as you start your week. If you're like me, Mondays are rough and you could use all the encouragement you can get! While I am no authority on God's Word and am overwhelmed at the thought of finding something to say each week, much less the time to say it, I know God will provide, and I hope to plant a desire in your life to search the Scriptures yourself so you can fall in love with Jesus as I have. Check back here Monday, February 23 for our inaugural voyage.