The Good Good Book

On mornings when the boys are in school, I read my Bible. It's one of those "read-the-Bible-in-a-year" Bibles, divided up into daily readings of the Old and New Testaments, Psalms and Proverbs.

I've had that Bible (and various others) for years, but it almost seems like a different book now that I've tried writing myself. The stories are crazy! And the Psalms--I read them aloud now and I can't believe how much I've been missing.

I was reading out loud one morning when I was caught off guard by something that struck me so true that, instead of continuing on to the next word, I got a big lump in my throat and started to cry. (This may have happened to you if you've read The Chronicles of Narnia or maybe even the Harry Potter books to your kids.) In the quiet, my doorbell rang.

My cheeks were still damp when I opened the door, and I wondered if I looked like easy pickings to the two smartly-dressed young women on my doorstep. I couldn't gather my thoughts enough to do much more than smile when they invited me to a free event in Portland and handed me a tract. I took it in one hand while I wiped my face with the other.

Willem's bus was due in five minutes, so I didn't have time to talk. The tract said something to the effect that I could wake up super-happy every single morning, and that that's what God wanted for me. I wish they could have seen right into my heart. I wish I could have said that what God wants for us is something more difficult, but better, which is to be transformed.

But instead I waved them good-by. I put the tract in the recycle bin and went out to meet the school bus.