With Comfort
Love. I have remembered some things that I had forgotten. Because I believe it is polite to share both my struggles and my comforts, I intend to share them.
I know that not everyone is religious. And I know that not everyone who professes religion believes the same. I do not mind if your beliefs are different than mine; rather, I believe that those differences are part of what makes each of us uniquely beautiful, and I enjoy learning of different beliefs. But these are some of mine.
I have struggled making myself understood since I was very young. My parents raised me in a church, where I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by many genuinely good people. I remember being surprised when I went to college and learning that not all churches were like mine.
Among the lessons I learned were these: that the Bible contains divinely-inspired words of wisdom, and that the love of God is meant for each of us. (It is okay if you do not share these lessons; I do not mean to proselytize.) I have often felt isolated and alone, because it is difficult to share ideas without the words, and sometimes we do not share the words. I felt this way as a child, and I do still struggle with it often as an adult. But as a child, I approached my problem with the determination of a child that has limited tools. I could read, and I believed that if the Bible contained wisdom, then surely there must be something in it that spoke to me.
I have never read all the way through the Bible. I have probably read each book separately and quite a few of them in different combinations, but not a straight read as one might read any other book. That childhood search for a piece of connecting wisdom is the closest I’ve been, because I knew no other way to search through a book than to read it. Even now, I wonder how I might go about it – how can you search for what you don’t know?
I remember receiving much advice from adults that saw me reading so intently. It took many Sundays – even though I had my own Bible, I did not feel my search would go well with it. It didn’t seem to use words that were heavy enough; later I understood this as a child-like view of the translation, because it was a children’s Bible. And so some adults would ask about where I was or which book I was reading. And now I wonder about the advice I received – it was rarely encouraging, but seemed to highlight struggles or difficulties.
The book of the Bible that comforts me the most is one that I probably heard about most often: Ecclesiastes. I so often heard how people did not like that book for one reason or another. But it is the one that speaks to my soul most directly. I’m not certain I would recommend it to everyone, but I hope to continue to pass the peace it brings me on to others. (And now, I also idly wonder with some amount of mischief if anyone from my church had considered that the book directly after is Song of Songs, which as a young teen I was also intensely curious about; but it seems to me that old people tend to forget about such things.)
I am still struggling with some things. I think that’s life. But I feel at peace again, and am truly thankful. Amen.
And now I want to go read Ecclesiastes…I am going to do that 🙂
@happyathome It is a wonderful book to me. It helps me ground other Biblical truths firmly into my own sensory reality. That being said, I respect other people’s opinions on it. For some people, it is confusing or difficult. For some people, they are just words on a page.
I do not know your personal beliefs, but I would also share this with you, purely as coincidence. I have never been able to nail down a specific verse of the Bible to be my favorite. I find that a specific verse may become my favorite for a time as I grow and reflect on the truths that surround it, and then I may leave it for another verse that helps me grow. In this case, I found this verse purely by accident.
My Bible is a gift to me from my wife, given to me in 2008 after we had decided to have kids but before we were pregnant. She gave it to me because I needed a large-print Bible for the first time. My Bible has a cover on it that was made in Guatemala; I bought it from a market vendor when I went to go help build a clinic for an orphanage in 2009. Back in December, in preparation for finding a specific passage, I opened directly to pages 2020 and 2021. (Now, I would not say that this is a good way necessarily to find wisdom in the Bible, but it certainly got my attention.) Seeing that the page numbers reflected the years of two very hard years of my own and many others, I looked down to see just what was on the pages. And this verse stood out to me, very close to the spine (the heart of the book, if you will):
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.” – Luke 10:41-42
I am often upset and worried about many things, almost all of which I have no control over. I have returned to this verse for comfort over the past few months.
It was also remarkable to me where this story sat in Luke’s narrative. Just before the story of Martha and Mary is the story of the good Samaritan, a story that was taught to me as a very young child and one that I’ve always strived to live by. And just after it, Jesus taught us how to pray, which in itself was an answer to a prayer to me.
And so I looked further, on either side to see what other powerful words surrounded this place in the Bible that I’d seemingly randomly turned. Before the story of the good Samaritan, you’ll find Jesus sending out the seventy-two. That story has always been equal parts comfort and conviction for me, but once again, something with which I personally resonated. And after Jesus taught us how to pray, Luke tells us about Jesus driving out demons. I know enough of struggling with my own demons to feel the power that Luke is trying to capture and inform us of.
Sometimes I wonder why the Bible might be called the Living Word of God. Sometimes I forget. But sometimes, I remember.
One last, perhaps meaningless thought – during the story of Jesus and his teachings on demons, I had to turn the page and continue on to page 2022. Perhaps it is different in some Bibles, but mine has certain titles for certain sections. The very next section of Luke – Luke 11:29-32 – is titled “The Sign of Jonah”. I struggled with this section for many years as a child and as an adult. Last year in December, I was reminded that my youngest son’s name is Jonah, and so it now reads completely differently. I still struggle, but in a way, my son is with me when I do.
I do not know if any of these words have meaning, but I believe they do. Peace to you.
@iamnur I don’t have words to tell you how much this note means to me. I am going through something hard right now and have been very scared and worried and reading that verse brought me a feeling of calm and peace. I am now reading through this book of the Bible. I appreciate your thought provoking notes to me…thank you.
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