Tuesday Mornings with . . .

I can’t remember when it started, but it has to be five or six years ago. One of the doctors that I work with and another co-worker go to the Northwoods Vineyard Church here in our town. They asked their pastor if he could join them in starting a Bible study at the clinic where we work. Tuesday mornings at seven was the chosen time.

I maybe wake up fairly early every morning, but I really don’t like talking to anyone or even seeing anyone for at least a couple hours after crawling out of bed. I used to be quite the grouch at work when I first arrived. But I knew that God would get me through those Tuesday mornings and that I would learn to be a morning person.

I still can’t say I’m a morning person, and though I can smile and converse, I can’t honestly say that I think too deeply. But I have managed to make it to Bible Study many Tuesday mornings.

We have gone through five or six books of the Bible and studied three or four other books on living the Christian life. The group has fluctuated over the years, averaging from four to ten people. Many people have come and gone as their schedules and other outside factors have come along. It seems that when someone drops out there is always someone else who starts coming.

We open and close each week with prayer and the discussion in between often veers from the book we are supposedly studying. If anyone has a particular need, we will spend the time encouraging them and praying with them. Or we might spend an entire hour on one Bible verse or even one word. It never fails to amaze me how rich the Bible is, each verse, each word means something. Definitely a book which the writer should study for writing tips.

But that’s not the real reason I included a thank you to this group in the acknowledgements of my book. It is a rare thing in this society to be able to openly share your faith with others and even more rare to share your fears and doubts. The members of our Bible Study have supported me and strengthened my faith more than words can say. I’ve been reminded through that group, time and time again, that God is always near.

 Thank you, guys, and thank you God, for bringing us all together.

The Mustard Egg

“It was because you do not have enough faith,” answered Jesus. “I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, Go from here to there! and it will go. You could do anything!” Matthew 17:20 Good News Translation

For my fourteenth birthday, my parents gave me a charm bracelet. It was a popular gift for teen-age girls at the time, so kind of surprising that I got one. But anyway, over the years I even amassed a few charms. My sister Pat bought me a tiny Edelweiss bell in Germany. Someone gave me a cocker spaniel

charm; who knew that 25 years later I would have two cocker spaniels.

My aunt Helen gave me the one with the little seed under glass. The inscription on the reverse side of it reads: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matthew 17:20” Once one of my friends made the mistake of calling it a mustard egg. That kind of stuck, as dumb things do.

Elsewhere in the Bible is the explanation that the mustard seed starts out so small but from the tiny seed it grows into the largest plant in the garden. The mustard egg – I mean seed – doesn’t think to itself, “I am too small to amount to anything.” Instead it does what God gave it to. It doesn’t question its goal, it just does it. It grows.

So, just as Jesus told his disciples, that is what we need to do. Have faith strong enough to make anything happen. Don’t think about it, don’t come up with excuses, just do it.

Lord, strengthen my faith. Remind me daily that with You at my side, nothing will be too much for You and me to handle. Nothing will be impossible.