Year of 5,000 Books

Although I said, I would post your book responses next week my friend Melanie sent me hers today. When I read what she wrote, I felt that her words would touch your heart as they did mine...So I've posted it today since there’s no sense in delaying this blessing.

Paula-

That's an easy one. At fifteen, I read my best friend's copy of Christy, by Catherine Marshall. This lovely piece of fiction was used by God to motivate me to read the Bible, as Christy's reading of the Bible in the novel was a new and radical concept to me and caused me to wonder what the Bible actually said.

As a result, I was carrying a Bible with me when I took my first college class in the summer between tenth and eleventh grades. A Christian classmate noticed my (actually my best friend's) Bible and asked if I was a Christian. I told her that I didn't know, as I was Jewish but believed in Jesus. She told me that I was a Christian and persuaded me to attend her church's youth Bible study.

At the study, I realized how little I knew in comparison with the others, who had spent their lives in church. I began attending a different Bible study or church service every day of the week in my passion to learn all I could about my faith and catch up with the others. Accordingly, I decided to attend a Christian college and selected Biola. It was at Biola that I met my husband.

It is impossible to guess where I would be now had I not read Christy. Every aspect of my post-adolescent life was affected by that single, seemingly insignificant decision. I am convinced that my precious son Blaise owes his life to it, and without Blaise I would be an entirely different person.

…Thank you my friend for sharing some of your faith journey with me and allowing me to post it. For those of you that don’t know literature reaches people in a way scripture cannot because one only reads scripture when the need arise or our interest is fanned. Chisty is one example of how literature draws people to God.