The Illustrated Words of Jesus for Woman

I may have written about this before, but the journey does continue!

I have been faithfully reading the decotion each day, writing in the book, and coloring the pictures that accompany each day.  I took a pack of colored pencils with me on the Florida trip to help out - limited colors but they worked out well.

I try to post every day in the FB forum that Rhonda and I share also.   She hasn't been posting much - working, a business trip to Philadelphia, then she was sick.  But she comments sometimes that she is so thankful for our friendship and that she is enjoying my posts.

I hope she feels well enough soon, not just so she is on the road to good health again, but so that she can read daily and post because I do miss interaction with others.

The daily devotions are really good.  I like the focus on individual passages.  I spend some time thinking about my interpretations of those scriptures and how I can apply them to my life, then I read the narrative that goes with them.  Often my eyes are opened because my interpretations are very different.  But that is what happens and what is meant to be.  We interpret based on our own knowledge, our experience, our beliefs.  No one interpretation is right; no one interpretation is totally wrong.

I remember when I was so gung-ho on the YouVersion app and the Reading the Bible in 365 Days.  I would read the commentary, then read the scriptures, and sometimes I would just scan through the verses, marking them off as "read" and feeling accomplished.  After Greta and I went to hear the speaker in Ft. Wayne (whose name escapes me right now), my view changed.  While she stressed the importance of reading and studying the Bible, her view was that following a reading plan such as the one I was doing was not beneficial because the reading was in chunks with no time for dissection or interpretation.  She recommended focusing on portions of scripture, or even a book of the Bible, and taking the reading slow, with study of the words, the meanings, the messages found there.  

That made sense to me, and when I listen to Lysa speaking during the current OBS, she does the same thing.  She has been focusing on the creation story in Genesis, the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and their specific words and reactions.  When I was reading it last January, I read through the verses and moved on.  I remember thinking, Yea, yea, yea...I have read this many times before and I know this story already.  But now with Lysa's encouragement, I have been looking at the verses with new eyes, from a different perspective.

Yes, I like this devotional book.  Yes, it is giving me the opportunity to explore and focus on individual verses and interpret them, as well as record my thoughts.  I like the time to color the illustrations also!

But I do miss Rhonda and our discussions.  I hope she feels better soon, gets into a routine, and includes our daily devotions in that routine.