I just got this photo from Alice, whom we met when we were living in Dubai for a while. Soon Chai and her must have taken a tour to India recently and this was among their their photos. The Taj Mahal. I saw it for the first time on the cover for a book when I was in primary five. The book has a title I will never forget, "The Greatest is Love". It must have come to me by divine appointment. Someone had threw it into the house. Apparently every apartment was given one, some evangelistic effort I think, but at that time I didn't know. I saw it as a story book. I was very curious what love is. All I have got were the wrong info on TV and the movie theatres. Furthermore as I didn't come from an English speaking family, and my command of the language wasn't very good. Of course a few years later, I recognize it was the New Testament from the Living Bible Translation. Glad they didn't give the Gideon's Bible. I would have started from Genesis struggling with in the KJV. I wouldn't have gone very far.
I started reading from the first story. That is how you read a story book. It had to be the Gospel according to Matthew. I was surprised this story was more or less repeated three more times. I recognized them as the Jesus story from the Children's Bible Aunt Cecilia had given me previously. I went on to Acts, flipped through most of Romans utterly perplexed but I clearly remember the warmth Romans 8 gave me. Eventually I got to the unforgettable passage by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. So this is love. Many pages and letters later, I couldn't find anything close to the Love chapter and I stopped. I never got to Revelation. It would have frightened an eleven year old. Now looking back it was a very good preparation for the journey ahead. It anchored me well even if I wasn't a believer yet. I didn't know then the Lord would meet up with me again many times. I needed to be taught differently from most because I had a congenital disability. I would not discover it for many years. Grace was at work secretly, mysteriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment