This is mainly for Susan, but I hope the rest of you hang around even thought it is loooong. Susan is a new blogger, just lost her grandfather, and has some questions about eternity. I hope you visit her and welcome her as warmly as you did me!

I often felt stupid in church and in Sunday School. We didn’t go regularly enough for me to feel like I fit in, and I didn’t like being the only one who didn’t know any answers to all those religious questions they asked about Bible stories. I was a smart kid, and I hated being in a setting where I was the dumb one. I grew up thinking Christians were, well, weird.

I was close to my grandmother. In my teen years she was there, and I needed her more than she knew. When I was about 17 she started going to church .  Then she got weird. She didn’t have a lot of money, and never spent much on gifts. But one day when I went over there she gave me something she’d spent way too much on. It wasn’t a holiday or anything, and she handed me a Bible. I took it out of its box (horrified), and was completely offended at the sight of it. She’d had my name embossed in gold on the front. Um, yuck. Of all the things to put my name on, that was just – well, creepy. I put it back in its box and left it untouched for years.

She tried to talk to me about Jesus. I was a good kid, so I was polite. But really I was mad at the Stupid Church People who took my nice, sane grandmother and replaced her with this weird version. She asked me to attend her baptism. I went. I was offended and furious at what I saw. I’d never heard of ‘baptism by immersion’ and assumed we were getting all dressed up and acting like a little sprinkling on the head were some holy act. That I could do, at least. But no. They DUNKED my grandmother. I wanted to tell them to get their hands off her, do they know how old she is? Do they know that she can afford one trip to the Beauty Shop (as she called it) a week, for a curl and set and now she’d have to go twice? Is the church springing for the extra appointment? I was so mad. And around me all the church people were giddy. And it made no sense at all. Afterwards, she seemed weird and happy and I got out of there as fast as I could so I didn’t tell her what I thought and take away her happiness.

Within 2 years she was gone. I came home from college for Christmas and drove behind as the ambulance took her to the hospital. A couple weeks later I  learned where the ICU was, and after that, what it felt like be in the room and watch a loved one die. She knew where she was going, but I didn’t, and so I had no peace. I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Was there a heaven or hell, or *poof* and you’re just gone?  The questions nagged at me. I never thought I’d know the answers.

When I was twenty I had a weird week. One day something much larger than myself silently insisted that i break up with my boyfriend – who i liked a lot.  It was such an intense, unexplainable urging that I did it immediately even though it didn’t make sense. Afterwards I was baffled the relief i felt and the sadness I didn’t feel.

Also that week, I went to church. It was interesting, but I wasn’t sure why I’d even gone. I felt all noble for showing up once and I certainly didn’t plan to return. Then I invited myself to a church thing with a friend. I didn’t want to go, but it bugged me that she didn’t invite me. I mean, aren’t Christians supposed to ‘push’ God on you? Why wouldn’t she ever invite me? I wanted to say no to her, but she never gave me the chance! I remember getting ready to meet with her that night and wondering why in the world I’d opened my mouth and asked to come along. It was an odd night. I cried for no reason when the people sang God songs. Like, who cares? For some reason I did, and was sobbing even though I wasn’t sad. My friend said it was the Holy Spirit. (I didn’t tell her “Then I don’t need him!” But I certainly thought it.)

A couple nights later I couldn’t sleep. At all. I had the same words stuck in my head. Green pastures? Was it a poem from high school? It sounded old. Maybe biblical. But I couldn’t get rid of  those words, repeating. I called a cousin who said she didn’t know. At 3 in the morning I remembered that Bible, still in its box. I’d almost thrown it away 6 months before when I moved apartments, but I dug it out of the trash and put it back on the shelf. I figured if there were a hell I didn’t want to go there for throwing away a bible.  I got it out of the box and stared at my name in gold. I’d forgotten that part. It seemed unlikely I’d find the 2 little words in my head in this huge book, but I had all night and if anything would put me to sleep, this was probably it.

I opened it, and a note fell out. My grandmother’s beautiful, swoopy  handwriting surprised me. I’d never seen this note before, since I’d never bothered to open it. She’d been gone for awhile now, and receiving a note from her had tears spilling down my cheeks before I could even read the words. It was brief.

“Dear Kelsey,

I hope you don’t have many hard times, but if you do, try reading Psalm 23. It’s always worked for me.”

I didn’t know how to find a book in the Bible. I recognized that same feeling I’d had the night my friend said it was the ‘Holy Spirit.’ My hands shook, because I knew this was no accident. I was lying awake with two little words in my head and now, from beyond the grave, my grandmother was telling me where exactly in the Bible to look for an answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking. As I fumbled with the pages I recognized that this was God. That God was real. That He actually did exist in a real way for my grandmother, and was just beginning to make Himself known to me. That He’d actually gone to great lengths to introduce Himself, and I was shaking with the enormity of the moment. Those words were in the 23^rd Psalm, of course, and by the time I found them and read them I was praying aloud – acknowledging God. I wasn’t eloquent or theologically correct, but He had gotten my attention and I sensed the importance of voicing the eternal change that was occurring. I didn’t sleep that night. I lay awake and thought of how the plans or this night had been divinely set in place for years.

Within a couple of days, I was praying on my porch with a couple of men, sealing the deal. God had wanted me for His own in a way I couldn’t fathom, and had loved me enough to wait and call to me for years until I answered.

He’s calling you, now, Susan.

(PS Met my husband 6 weeks later. Was soooo glad I’d dumped the boyfriend already!)

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