Life-Changing

It's been twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years since we left our comfort zone, our family and friends, and moved halfway across the country to the suburbs of Denver, Colorado.  We joined a local church.  The boys started school and Al started his new job.  I established my piano studio and began taking students.  And we met our new neighbors.  Twenty-five years ago this month.

Twenty-five years since my neighbor Connie invited me to attend a Precept Upon Precept Bible study with her.

Twenty-five years since I learned all about colored pencils and key words and context.

Twenty-five years since I first sat under the teaching ministry of Kay Arthur.

Twenty-five years since I really learned how to study the Bible for myself.

What an exciting journey this has been, and continues to be! What a difference knowing how to study precept upon precept has made in my life!

And continues to make!

As I'm now studying through Esther, precept upon precept, I'm so very grateful to Connie for inviting me to that Covenant study twenty-five years ago. I'm so grateful for the study skills I have learned over the years. I'm so grateful to Precept Ministries International for their commitment to equip God's people to study His Word.

The class was already several weeks into the study of Covenant when I got there.  Twenty-five years ago we didn't download lessons from the internet!  I'm not sure we even had internet back then!  So I patiently waited for my lesson book to arrive in the mail, and that first week my leader photocopied the next lesson for me to get started.  I was lost as a goose!  Since I had missed the introductory lesson, and since I had never done a Precept Bible study before, I didn't really get the whole colored pencils/key words thing.  But I caught on quickly and I have never been the same!  Not just because I studied Covenant, although that alone would have been life-changing, but because I learned how to study God's Word!

Talk about the power of one! What Kay Arthur, one woman, began around her kitchen table is now an international ministry reaching men and women, teenagers, boys and girls, in 185 countries, in 70 different languages, around the world!

Thank you, Kay, for being obedient to God's call on your life!

Thank you, Connie, for inviting me to Bible study!

Thank you, Precept Ministries, for all you do to establish God's people in God's Word!

I have often wondered how our lives might have been different if we had stayed in South Carolina.  If we had not followed where God was leading, and had not left our comfort zone and ventured forth.   What would be the difference in our sons' lives or in ours.  How life might have been so very different for all of us.

Certainly we would not have seen as much of the country, and of the world, as we have.  Certainly we would not have all the friends we have in so many places.  Even more, we would have missed out on so many of the lessons God had to teach us.  About trusting.  About following where He leads, even when we don't understand.  I would never have met Connie.  And I might not have had the opportunity to become a Precept student and to study the truths of Covenant.

I am forever grateful.  And changed.

Grateful to Kay Arthur.  Grateful to Connie.

Most of all, grateful to God for moving me out of my comfort zone and teaching me, through His Spirit, the truths of His Word.  Precept upon precept.

"Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for You."  (Psalm 119:38 NASB)