Eating vegetables

It is said to be a friend and an anchor

but sometimes it feels like a foe.

A jab of guilt if days have passed without lifting the cover.

Words bring comfort but also confusion, challenge and horror.

If I read it every day will I grow, grow, grow or just get frustrated?

It is said to be a sword cutting through the heart, revealing the intentions of man.

Dividing families and nations but also bringing them together.

People travel till their feet ache just to get a glimpse.

Smuggled across borders, shared across a village.

Lives given for translation.

Lives taken through abuse and interpretation.

I have taken big bites.

Chapters a day through miracles and blood shed.  Angels and demons.  Love and hatred.  Checking off my list to finish in a year.

I have taken little nibbles.

A verse on my phone with a pretty picture.

I have said the words out loud and heard them whispered in my mind.

Singing scripture songs with my mom as the cassette tape called Combat plays.  Fighting words to drive out darkness.

Cheating on a school test for a crisp colourful certificate congratulating me on scripture memory.

And here I sit with the rain coming down. My daughter is asleep. Cup of tea in hand.

Longing for a drink of pure water.  Longing for the thirst that I have read about where people say, “I read the bible and it changed my life!”  Do they always have joy now? Do they always want to read?  Do they still get frustrated and have questions unanswered like me?

The bible sits in front of me like fresh colourful vegetables… I know I will benefit after washing, cutting and eating. I know that it is good for me.

But oh those potato chips so salty and easy.  Tasty morsels to eat up my day.  I don’t have to think.  Just enjoy.

Enough of the rules. Striving no more. Taste vegetables without the pressure.  Shoulds are outlawed.

O Lord let me see your word anew. May it be like honey and spring rain.  And when the vegetables are hard and don’t taste very good and I want to spit them out   Help me to know that is okay and you are here just the same.