There has been a lot going on in my family lately. It has shaken a lot of us up. It pushed me, for a few months, into a maternal role over my brother because my parents were too busy arguing to take care of him. There was a while last summer where I don't think any one of us wanted to come home. It pushed all of us to tears. It pushed my parents to thoughts of divorce.
But it pushed my dad to thoughts of suicide.
He said didn't want to live anymore. He said he felt like a hollow shell and he just wanted to fade away. I can relate. I felt like that for a long time. I didn't want anything to do with anyone, I just wanted to get through life and get it over with.
For me, the turning point was meeting a gypsy boy well-versed in both flamenco guitar and the Bible. Let's just say that my mother seemed less than thrilled at the prospect of my becoming a Christian. But I started going to church and reading the Bible and praying. I was baptized just this past summer.
I prayed for my family, but I didn't know how I could better help them to see the light. Just by letting God shine through? I stumbled frequently enough to keep from seeming too good a person and my family, the people closest to me in the world, would obviously be the first to know such a thing. I felt changed - dramatically changed - but I had no idea if my family was seeing this at all because I kept to myself so much. Talking with them about it? My father's friends were anti-Christian and his own attitude was rather dismissive. There seemed to be no real point in trying to, erm, verbally evangelize. I did both, but I couldn't help feeling that it wasn't enough... I wasn't making any sort of impression.
Wasn't I supposed to be the one letting God's light shine through me onto my family? Had I simply failed? What could I have been doing better? What did I need to change?
I, me, I, I, I... MY responsibility... right?
And then, all of a sudden, some books appear on the table from the Watchtower Society. One was a book, one was a kids magazine. I figured my uncle, a Jehovah's Witness, had left the book for me and the magazine for Nicky. I saw that the book was marked to a page, about halfway through and figured my dad might've given it a cursory glance. I threw them both away.
I was later told by my mother, however, that the book was for my dad. He had been reading it, not with a dismissive attitude, but seriously looking at it and he and my uncle were going to research creation versus evolution.
And I had to go dig that book out of the trash.
Over the weeks, more books appeared from the Watchtower Society. Books about the Bible, family happiness, creation and evolution, and, finally, a New World Translation of the Scriptures.
Indeed, I had failed. I felt like a worthless piece of junk who couldn't even protect her own family from false prophets. I had failed God. I wasn't good enough, pushy enough, knowledgable enough, something enough...
My dad and I started talking about the Scriptures. We talked about hell, about translations, about church teachings, and the Catholic church. We talked about Protestantism, the Reformation, God, forgiveness, sin, and the name of God. He, it appeared, was approaching the Jehovah's Witness literature with a healthy sense of skepticism, but felt he was being called by God to know Him. He felt that all this learning was basically starting with a base and moving from there. I didn't think that was unreasonable, but I still felt uncomfortable with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I gave him some information about the translation panel for the NWT (basically one translator, someone fluent in modern Greek, and some people with nothing more than a high school education and no training in Biblical languages) and some of my Bibles, from which he picked my NLT study Bible. That is now what he reads regularly. He's even been reading with my Ma.
He was reading last night at the kitchen table as I was surfing the Internet. "Acts 16:31," I heard from the kitchen.
I went to biblegateway.com and typed in the verse, reading aloud, "They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household..'" I shrugged, not getting the point.
"What does that say to you?" he asked.
My mind was in doctrine mode. As the last thing we had discussed doctrinally was verse references about the Trinity, I was trying to see how it applied to the subject. No tunderstanding, I said, "It says 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household.'"
Dad then said, "There's a footnote here that says, 'Even one believer can influence an entire household for Christ.'" And then he winked at me.
I was speechless. I came up with the flimsy words, "I've been praying. And it sounds like you have, too."
He merely said, "Yup," and continued reading.
Acts 16:31
Hallelu Yah!
But it pushed my dad to thoughts of suicide.
He said didn't want to live anymore. He said he felt like a hollow shell and he just wanted to fade away. I can relate. I felt like that for a long time. I didn't want anything to do with anyone, I just wanted to get through life and get it over with.
For me, the turning point was meeting a gypsy boy well-versed in both flamenco guitar and the Bible. Let's just say that my mother seemed less than thrilled at the prospect of my becoming a Christian. But I started going to church and reading the Bible and praying. I was baptized just this past summer.
I prayed for my family, but I didn't know how I could better help them to see the light. Just by letting God shine through? I stumbled frequently enough to keep from seeming too good a person and my family, the people closest to me in the world, would obviously be the first to know such a thing. I felt changed - dramatically changed - but I had no idea if my family was seeing this at all because I kept to myself so much. Talking with them about it? My father's friends were anti-Christian and his own attitude was rather dismissive. There seemed to be no real point in trying to, erm, verbally evangelize. I did both, but I couldn't help feeling that it wasn't enough... I wasn't making any sort of impression.
Wasn't I supposed to be the one letting God's light shine through me onto my family? Had I simply failed? What could I have been doing better? What did I need to change?
I, me, I, I, I... MY responsibility... right?
And then, all of a sudden, some books appear on the table from the Watchtower Society. One was a book, one was a kids magazine. I figured my uncle, a Jehovah's Witness, had left the book for me and the magazine for Nicky. I saw that the book was marked to a page, about halfway through and figured my dad might've given it a cursory glance. I threw them both away.
I was later told by my mother, however, that the book was for my dad. He had been reading it, not with a dismissive attitude, but seriously looking at it and he and my uncle were going to research creation versus evolution.
And I had to go dig that book out of the trash.
Over the weeks, more books appeared from the Watchtower Society. Books about the Bible, family happiness, creation and evolution, and, finally, a New World Translation of the Scriptures.
Indeed, I had failed. I felt like a worthless piece of junk who couldn't even protect her own family from false prophets. I had failed God. I wasn't good enough, pushy enough, knowledgable enough, something enough...
My dad and I started talking about the Scriptures. We talked about hell, about translations, about church teachings, and the Catholic church. We talked about Protestantism, the Reformation, God, forgiveness, sin, and the name of God. He, it appeared, was approaching the Jehovah's Witness literature with a healthy sense of skepticism, but felt he was being called by God to know Him. He felt that all this learning was basically starting with a base and moving from there. I didn't think that was unreasonable, but I still felt uncomfortable with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I gave him some information about the translation panel for the NWT (basically one translator, someone fluent in modern Greek, and some people with nothing more than a high school education and no training in Biblical languages) and some of my Bibles, from which he picked my NLT study Bible. That is now what he reads regularly. He's even been reading with my Ma.
He was reading last night at the kitchen table as I was surfing the Internet. "Acts 16:31," I heard from the kitchen.
I went to biblegateway.com and typed in the verse, reading aloud, "They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household..'" I shrugged, not getting the point.
"What does that say to you?" he asked.
My mind was in doctrine mode. As the last thing we had discussed doctrinally was verse references about the Trinity, I was trying to see how it applied to the subject. No tunderstanding, I said, "It says 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household.'"
Dad then said, "There's a footnote here that says, 'Even one believer can influence an entire household for Christ.'" And then he winked at me.
I was speechless. I came up with the flimsy words, "I've been praying. And it sounds like you have, too."
He merely said, "Yup," and continued reading.
Acts 16:31
Hallelu Yah!
