Of Grief, Bible Reading and Resolutions

I was intending to write this post last year, but when we came home from my family's Christmas gathering I ended up on the couch aching all over & feeling "like something the cat dragged in". I should've seen it coming. I have an excellent track record for getting sick right after the crazy busy times. But I did not see this one coming.

Today is one of those introspective, weepy days so maybe its a good blogging day. Or maybe not. Because my brain still feels fuzzy from the flu bug. I'll apologize in advance if anything I say doesn't make sense.

Today is 26 years since my brother Steve went Home to be with Jesus. I miss him. Still.

I don't grieve for him- he's in a better place and I'd not wish him back. But the tears flow for us, because we are missing out. The SIL and nieces & nephews I never got, the memories that stop too soon, the glories of our forever home we have to wait to experience ...while we live on in this place that seems increasingly scary & hostile for Christians. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Today is 24 years since we welcomed Baby #2 in our home. I love him. Still.

Celebrating his birthday always helped me get through this day, but now that he's married and it's not my job to pull off the birthday celebration this day has reverted back to a weepy kind of day.

But I digress. What I started out to talk about was how we read through the Bible together as a church last year. When the idea was first introduced I was not enthusiastic. I'm not much of a speed-reader so I wasn't thrilled about zipping through the Bible. I thought it would be too hard to keep up momentum -somewhere around the dog days of summer when enthusiasm wanes, and it would take too much time. Past attempts to read through the Bible [on my own] were not overly enjoyable or successful.

I was pleasantly surprised that it really does NOT take that much time- 10 minutes or less per day will get 'er done. The brilliance of the plan was using the week's passages for our Sunday School lesson. It helped keep us on track- anyone who didn't participate or lagged behind wasn't prepared for class.

And there is something incredible about reading the Bible together- it opens up whole new subjects for discussion. Something to talk about after church besides the weather. It's amazing how often Biblical stuff comes up when you are reading the same passages. And when your family is gathered around the table for medium rare steaks along about the time you're reading through Leviticus... 🤣
 
I'm the odd ball who loves Old Testament. I chafe under our church's penchant for using only the New Testament for Sunday school. I get weary of plodding through the NT. If you read through the Bible in a year, you will spend 9 months in the Old Testament, and only 3 in the New. So I LOVED this past year. When others were getting bogged down with genealogies and laws and bloodshed, I was possibly the only one enjoying the change of pace. I'm sorry it's over. I'm sorely disappointed in the decision to skip Revelation entirely [for Sunday school] and move back to plodding through the NT chapter by chapter.   
The moral of the story is we highly recommend reading through the Bible together with your church or family. Get yourself a few folks committed to reading with you. And it helps a lot if you use a version you can listen to -when you get to the boggy parts.

Since I didn't get around to writing this till the new year, resolutions are also on my mind. My word for 2019 was prioritize. The word that is niggling me for 2020 is FOCUS. No pun intended. 2020... Focus... get it? My resolutions have to do with less weight, more scrapbooking and reading. In addition our church calendar this year has 3 acts of kindness challenges for every month; I am resolving to try complete those. Laying on the couch aching & dizzy isn't a stellar start, but it can only go up from here, right?