I don't have a lot of time right now, but I wanted to say that Christianity Explored yesterday was good. Cami and Mike were there, asking good questions again.

The study is getting more personal. The discussion questions at the end now are personal questions like, "Who do you believe Jesus is?" I thought that was a bit personal to ask in a discussion yet, but Cami and Mike handled it well. Cami confessed that she was still having a hard time, that this is still just a story to her, which I can totally understand. She also mentioned, though, that the discussion was really good for her and she wanted to find a way to continue the discussing even after the class ends. So I am going to e-mail Peter, our small group coordinator, about it. The thing is, I think I should be involved somehow, but I am not comfortable hosting them at our apartment.

Mike had an interesting answer to the question of what he believed about Jesus. He said something along the lines of, "I understand who this [the Bible] is saying Jesus is, but I don't know, I still just don't...'get' it. It hasn't clicked."

I wanted to jump up and down and say, "It's the Holy Spirit! He's working in you and I PROMISE there will come a day where you will all of a sudden get it, and it will be completely inexplicable, but you'll know it's the Holy Spirit!" LOL.

Then at the end of the discussion, he asked one of his great questions. "Can I just ask everyone an honest question?" he said. "Did it always come this easily for you? Or did you have questions?"

I had to keep myself from snorting at myself as I thought back to where I was spiritually when I was engaged to Stephen. Did I have questions? Oh BOY! did I have questions! Uggh! I think that period of my life was as close to spiritual hell as I've ever been on earth. My heart pounded as I realized I would have to share my story.

David shared some of his story--he said it had always come fairly easily to him, but it had only been in the last 2 years (and this was news tom e) that he had finally come out of a works-heavy understanding of the Gospel into the understanding that "Jesus actually took my punishment on that Cross."

As soon as he was finished I jumped right in (now or never!) and explained, briefly to Cami and Mike how I had gotten so skeptical, thanks to college telling me to question EVERYTHING and not giving me any answers, that I ended up in a place where I wasn't even sure God existed. And then I met Stephen and I couldn't figure out how the heck his faith was so solid when mine was totally in shambles. And I threw SO many questions at him, and we fought so much. I didn't get to tell them that Stephen asked several people whether he should even consider marrying me, since it didn't appear that I was a Christian. That would've been interesting to add to the story.

Anyway, I told him the only explanation I can come up with for me being as strong as I am now, and stronger than I ever was before, is that God's hand was on me the entire time, and He brought me back. He had to start my faith from rock bottom and build it back up so that it reflected the actual Gospel and not the works-heavy understanding I had had of it.

Relying upon human wisdom. That's what college basically trained me to do. And the Bible clearly says that human wisdom cannot bring you to God (1 Corinthians 1). That's why I ended up where I did. I hope I get a chance to share that with Mike in some nonthreatening way. FAITH is the only way you get to belief in Christ, truly.

Anyway. I gotta go, because I have to go run down to a craft fair and buy a couple candles for my aunt for Christmas. I'm still thinking on everything that happened yesterday, so I might be back. :)

-Stephanie

And I'm back! I remembered one more story that I wanted to share.

One of the discussion questions was, "How would you feel if somebody deliberately took the punishment for something you did?"

"Guilty," Mike said.

"Grateful," Heidi said.

"Humbled," I said.

And I suddenly realized that "humbled" is where "guilty" and "grateful" meet.

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