{"id":8339,"date":"2011-07-06T12:13:53","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T17:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/?p=8339"},"modified":"2011-07-06T12:13:53","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T17:13:53","slug":"confessions-first-time-bible-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/confessions-first-time-bible-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"True Confessions of First-time Bible reader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=junejulyrandom026.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/junejulyrandom026.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"True Confessions of a first-time Bible reader\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Guest post by Janet, Bible in 90 Days grad and mentor.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>True Confession #1: <\/strong> Before this challenge, I had never read the Bible before.\u00a0 I take that back. I had never read the ENTIRE Bible before.<\/p>\n<p>I know many of you are in this same boat, unless you&#8217;re a seminary student or a pastor or something. In which case, I hope you&#8217;ve read the whole Bible.<\/p>\n<p><strong> True Confession #2:<\/strong> I didn&#8217;t go to church regularly as a child. I believed in God and I went to church occasionally and I considered myself a Christian and all, but I didn&#8217;t &#8220;get&#8221; what it was all about. When I did go to church, I found it kind of boring. (I&#8217;m trying to be honest here. I bet a lot of you can relate at some point or another in your life.)<\/p>\n<p>I always WANTED to belong to a church and go regularly, but I never found the right &#8220;fit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, soon after I had my daughter, that all changed.\u00a0 I decided I wanted to go to church regularly and become &#8220;a part of it all.&#8221; My husband and I, along with our daughter, became members at the church we had been married in, where she had been baptized, and where we had occasionally attended.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after, I started attending a weekly Bible study. I found one where I thought I belonged, a young adult Bible study.\u00a0 I enjoyed it immensely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>True Confession #3: <\/strong>The only Bible story I could ever seem to recall off the top of my head was the Christmas story surrounding Jesus\u2019 birth. The problem with Bible study was when I began to realize how LITTLE I knew about the Bible. I didn\u2019t know if I even should be there. I longed to learn more and this was my whole reason for attending church and Bible study in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward a few months. I\u00a0followed numerous blogs and somehow stumbled upon Mom&#8217;s Toolbox.\u00a0 They had recently completed a round of B90Days with Mom&#8217;s Toolbox and were about to start up another online session. I was intrigued. I didn&#8217;t really know how it would all work out but I made up my mind I would sign up.\u00a0 When sign ups rolled around, I did. I knew no one. I knew people who had participated in other B90Days challenges, but no one who had done one online.\u00a0 I knew it was right for me for various reasons. We all have our own reasons ;)<\/p>\n<p>I began reading (my trick was reading on my Kindle as I worked out each day) and completed the Winter program in LESS than 90 days.\u00a0 I participated in the Twitter meetups weekly and loved the camaraderie, support, and love I found in others there. (Prior to this challenge, I didn&#8217;t even know how to use Twitter. I&#8217;m halfway techy and all, but I just hadn&#8217;t ventured into the world of tweeting).<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t easy. I won&#8217;t lie. I work full time outside of the home and am a Mommy.\u00a0 I read every day, sometimes getting up early and other times enjoying the peace of my daughter&#8217;s naptime to stay caught up. I got behind a few times but always managed to catch up&#8230; and I TRIED to stay slightly ahead at all times to give myself a safety net.<\/p>\n<p><strong>True Confession #4: <\/strong> I snuck in some reading while I was manning the church nursery on a few Sunday mornings!<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t understand every word or every passage, but I understood the overall meaning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>True Confession #5:<\/strong> I still don&#8217;t know the books in order but I&#8217;m getting better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>True Confession #6: <\/strong>I am a proud wearer (is that a word) of my B90Days t-shirt. I have it on right now in fact.\u00a0 (Coincidence? I think not&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>The summer session lies ahead and I am anxiously awaiting its beginning. I am signed up as a mentor this round and am thrilled to have the opportunity.\u00a0 This coming from a girl who FIRST read the whole Bible this year!\u00a0 I don&#8217;t claim myself as an expert BY ANY MEANS, but I know I have the love and passion (and prayers) to support anyone else who desires this experience.<\/p>\n<p>With that, I challenge YOU to join me in taking on the Bible in 90 Days.<\/p>\n<p>I did it&#8230; and YOU can too!<\/p>\n<p><em>Janet  is wife to a pilot husband and mommy to a toddler daughter living in  Ohio. She first read the Bible in 90 Days in Winter 2011 and is honored  to have the opportunity to mentor this round. Janet is a pediatric nurse  practitioner who enjoys scrapbooking, sports, reading, and traveling.  \u00a0She can be found on Twitter at @<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/janet28rn\" target=\"_blank\">janet28rn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest post by Janet, Bible in 90 Days grad and mentor. True Confession #1: Before this challenge, I had never read the Bible before.\u00a0 I take that back. I had never read the ENTIRE Bible before. I know many of you are in this same boat, unless you&#8217;re a seminary student or a pastor or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[257,275],"class_list":["post-8339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-in-90-days","tag-bible-in-90-days-testimonial","tag-guest-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8339"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8378,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions\/8378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}