A New Beginning...

  The very next week, my friend took me to a Christian Book Store in our little town. She told me that she would like to buy me a Bible. I was very surprised that she would do that for  me. It was a new thing, a friend that would buy me something that would benefit just me. She said it was very important for me to start to have time to read "Gods Word" ( as she called it), the Bible.

I ended up picking out a small burgandy leather bound King James Bible. She and I went back to her house and she sat down with me and showed me how to start learning about Jesus. The Bible would not be like any other book I had read. She said for me, it would be good to start in the New Testament, the Gospel of John.  She explained that I should take it slow, maybe a chapter a day. And actually read about Jesus and His ministry.  She also explained something to me that she called a "quiet time." She showed me her prayer journal, a small three-ring binder that she had. In it were sections that she had labeled, prayer, sermon notes, and insights. She explained that in the section she had for prayer, she had listed people that she loved and some she had as friends, and also issues in her own life that she wanted guidance on from the Lord. This quiet time would include reading the Bible, and prayer. She told me that she would get up really early in the morning and get her coffee and a cozy place in her home office and read, and pray and in essence, "spend time  with the Lord." as she put it.  She also said it was very important for me as a new christian to grow in faith and if I truly wanted that to happen this is a very good practice to do so.

   I thought to myself,. I surely needed a lot of answers, and I believed that God would do that for me.

 I took the Bible home . The next day I decided to make a start at reading this Bible thing and I hoped it would bring to me something I could hang on to.

  I read the first chapter of the gospel of John. "in the beginning was the Word, the Word was God and was with God..." Oh boy, that was something to ponder.

  I read the rest of the first chapter of John and closed my Bible. It was interesting but beyond my understanding. I talked with my friend about it, she said that it would not always be so hard to understand. She suggested to me to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help me to understand Gods Word, the Bible.  I did that the next day, and I also got a notebook and started a list of things to pray about.

  In a very short time, I was really surprised how the Bible seemed to open up to me, and my understanding got much better. 

  I was amazed how personable Jesus was to his followers and the people that had just met him. He cared about people, and spoke to them about what they really needed.

  I started to see a Jesus I had never knew, One I was amazed by and drawn to, just  from reading His Word.   

   In a month or so, my friend invited me to a ladies Bible Study that her friend was having once a week. I quickly found out that it was Emma, the lady that had watched my 3 children the day I went to the retreat.  Her Bible Study was starting up for another season. And the women that were going to be involved in it would be studying the Gospel of John in the New Testament! I thought, how cool is that!

  Things were becoming different in my life, I was starting to see things very differently, positively hopeful, and good days ahead. No, my husband didn't change, nor did anything else change much, but I was changing, and that was really amazing to me.

  God was "in my corner", He was working new things in  me and for my benefit,  I was learning many things,...life for me was changing day by day and that was GOOD news!