A letter about the question a seven-year-old asked at her birthday party.
If you've ever closed your Bible and felt further from God than when you opened it — it was never you.
Nobody handed you the map. I'm 62. I read mine for thirty years before somebody did. Here's what happened.
My granddaughter asked me a question at her seventh birthday party. Icing still on her fingers.
"Grandma, why did God let Grandpa get sick?"
And the whole table looked at me. Because I'm the grandma. Thirty years of Sundays. The one with the Bible on her nightstand.
I said, "Some things we just have to trust, sweetheart." She nodded. Went back to her cake.
I sat there and watched her eat, and I knew two things. She was going to ask again. And I didn't have an answer.
Driving home that night I said something to God I'd been hiding my whole life.
I've read your book for thirty years. And I still don't understand it.
I'd tried. A study Bible with footnotes longer than the verses. A reading-plan app. I quit in Leviticus. Twice. Every one of them gave me more. More to read. More words about the words.
That Sunday I sat down and read a whole chapter. Every word. Closed it. Couldn't have told you what it meant. Read it again. Nothing.
And I thought the thing I'd never said to anyone:
Maybe I'm just not smart enough for this.
If you've ever thought that, keep reading. Because it turned out to be the wrong explanation.
Two weeks later my daughter sent me a link. "Mom. Just look at one page."
I almost didn't. But the first page said something nobody had told me in thirty years of church:
You've been reading someone else's mail.
The Bible isn't one book. It's sixty-six. Written by around forty different people, over roughly fifteen hundred years, to people who already knew the backstory.
Paul wasn't writing to me. He was answering a real church with a real problem, and they knew what the problem was. I didn't. So of course his letter didn't make sense. Nobody can read a two-thousand-year-old letter cold.
I sat at my kitchen table and realized something I want you to hear:
It was never me. And it was never you.
It's not a faith problem. It's not a smart-enough problem. Nobody gave you the backstory.
Here's the page she sent me. The one for Jonah.
Every page in the guide answers the same three questions about one book of the Bible:
What's the backstory? Who wrote it, who they wrote it to, what was going on. What does it mean? The story in plain words. What do I do with it this week? Because if it stays on the page, nothing in your week changes.
Read it. It takes about five minutes. That's the whole method.
I read Jonah that night. A story I'd known for fifty years.
And for the first time, I understood it. The fish wasn't a punishment. It was a rescue.
I cried at my kitchen table and I couldn't stop.
One book a night after that. Sticky notes everywhere. And the Bible I'd owned for thirty years — I started reading it more.Not less. Because I finally had the map.
About a month ago I was tucking her in. And she asked me again.
"Grandma, why did God let Grandpa get sick?"
This time I didn't freeze.
I pulled her close and told her about a man named Job, who lost everything and asked God the exact same question she was asking. And I told her what God said back.
She fell asleep before I finished.
I sat there in the dark and thought: thirty years I was near Him. Now I'm with Him.
And my granddaughter will never have to sit at a table and watch her grandma freeze.
I don't know what your version of the birthday table is.
Maybe it's a grandchild. Maybe it's a son who stopped going. Maybe it's just you, alone, closing the book one more time and feeling further away than when you opened it.
But I know this: every week you close it confused is another week it stays that way. And somebody in your life is going to ask you something you can't answer.
Read one page tonight. Start with Jonah.
Then read Job. Before they ask.
God bless.
— Diane.
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