Thank you for visiting our ‘front porch’ so to speak…..where I’ve been sitting for probably the past 20 years, researching and studying the scriptures from a hebraic and biblical point of view. My journey began very early in my life - since I was always of the personality to question authority, always wanting to know the beginnings of whatever it was I was studying. The character and personality that Yahweh has imparted to me has always been one of searching, of looking, of watching, of studying - and when it spilled over into my young adulthood as a quest for ‘truth’….I had no idea it would lead me here on this front porch of biblical understanding.

When I first began on this journey, I plunged headfirst into the popular ideas of the day (back in the 70’s) - of searching answers out by using mystical and magical ways - of studying from popular so-called ‘leaders in the field’ - no matter what field they were in! And now, glancing backwards, I think they were in poppy fields!

My first ’step-out’ came in the mid-70’s when I attempted to ‘get more religious’ and visited the local Catholic church to ‘come clean’. Being reared in the ways of the Roman church, I knew (so I thought) that all I had to do was pop in for a few minutes, say the right words, receive the all clear and go on my merry way. However, this time was different. Being the new mother of two little boys - one barely 4 months (Jason), and the other a very active little 14 month old (Jim), the weight of wanting to do everything right and in order seemed to preoccupy my every minute. My life had taken turns that I could not have foreseen. For one, being in a little Illinois town where I knew next to no one, with no close-by family support and a husband that worked nights, it seemed that I was on an island - and sinking fast. I needed help, and my first lifeline was to what I knew best. Or at least what I thought I knew best.

Now, thirty years later, I can look back and know fully that everything that happened that evening was in the saving hands of my creator. It was the beginning of my journey for truth, and the beginning of the end of my association with the church of my upbringing. If I remember correctly, it was a Saturday afternoon when I mustered up the courage to confess my sins to the local parish priest - I’m not sure why, but I was extremely nervous, flustered and anxious. Little did I know what was in store for me. As I kissed my babies and left them with their father that beautiful Saturday afternoon, I jumped into our 1979 Metallic Green Roadrunner and headed off to the nearest church. It was near 5:00 pm….(funny how you remember these things after 30 years!) but I had planned it that way as I didn’t want to run into anyone that I might know. Maybe I was secretly hoping that it would be closed as well!

Well, the parking lot was pretty much empty and I only had a few minutes to park, enter and get in the proper confessional mode….I slowly made my way to the confessional - heart beating, face aflush, sweaty palms…..the slatted door opened easily and I entered the cubicle and quickly lowered myself onto the padded pew. My heart raced as the fancy gilded little face-door pushed open and I could faintly make out the face of the priest within. I silently prayed to God that He would help me and I blurted out my ’sins’……I started with the little ones - they call them venial - “Bless me Father for I have sinned…I have lied 4x, I have hollered at my kids, I have this and that’……and then I blurted out the big one -’I have missed mass x number of times’”!!!! Oh my - I had revealed the deepest and darkest of my sins! Yes, I know, you laugh…..so do I - now. But then, being a young, died in the wool Catholic sinner, I believed that priest held my life in his hands. And for all accounts - he did. But what he said next…..was so far beyond anything I expected to hear that I literally felt my life’s breath sucked out of my chest!

more to come……