Breakthroughs

This past week has been encouraging in the reading sessions. What a difference a fifth week makes! For many of my readers there is a familiarity with me that allows the sessions to be much more comfortable and open. For many, they are willing to risk their English in elaborating and giving examples of the concepts or words, even guessing at vocabulary that is new for them. But beyond improved English, there are improved realizations of God’s Word.

For one reader it came in the account of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. She has been a very bright student who has vastly improved in her English with me, and has generally understood the Biblical lessons with little difficulty. She told the story back to me flawlessly, but I was surprised when she asked me what the word “tears” meant. I assumed she knew so we had not gone over that word. So I explained the meaning, and that it must have been more than a couple tears that sometime we cry with if the woman was able to wash Jesus’ feet with them. Something struck her, and I could see it in her face. This reader was moved by the idea that this woman (potentially) cried enough to fill something like a basin to wash someone’s feet in. I asked her why the woman had cried so much. She herself was slightly choked up from the realization, and answered along the lines of the woman’s sorrow over her sins and recognizing who Jesus was… To see her response over this unnamed woman in Luke has had a great effect on me. It is refreshing to rediscover these scriptures with the eyes and hearts of my readers who are softened to the depth of their meaning.

Another reader has always made quiet noises in response to realizations she has during the sessions. To hear them when at last something makes sense, or has a deeper meaning than she first thought is a sweet noise to hear, and makes me want to have an appreciation for the words as she does. For the first time last night she shared a personal example that applied to the calling of Levi who “left everything” to follow Jesus. When she understood I had asked her personally if she has left something to follow Jesus, I heard a deep hushed noise of reflection – but one of acknowledgement. It took her a few minutes before she explained that she had nearly been conned into prostitution; she was told the money was very good, but she eventually found out enough about the man to know what her real job description would include. She turned it down immediately. While she said it was hard to lose the prospect of an income, there was no way she would sin against God. This reader has been a delight and challenge because her understanding is more advanced than her ability to communicate English, so while our sessions remain basic in questions, her understanding sees the whole picture of the scripture before her. My heart has been tutored by the typically wordless, but audible, expressions of her understandings.