Our journey began on a trip to Arkansas while driving through Tulsa, Oklahoma in March of 2018. My husband asked a simple question - What is God’s real name? I had no clue; I was only baptized a week earlier and only accepted Jesus three months earlier. How on Earth was I supposed to know this question?! We talked about it after completing our bible study for about two hours. Now, let me be clear - we did not have an answer in two hours. This question would circulate in our minds over the next 9 months before we really found the beginning of an answer.
We know there are many names for God: Yahweh, Yehovah/Jehovah, God, Lord, Father, etc. These names feel so impersonal when you apply them to the most intimate relationship you could ever have. My husband spent about two days diving deep into this topic that December after hearing a sermon on GraceFM (a semi-local radio station from the Calvary Chapel movement) regarding Christmas. We discussed topics from not celebrating Christmas (more on that later) and ignoring God’s clear pursuit to answer Andrew’s question for what was comfortable, so much so that we were ready to sell everything and move to Kenya. I am very pleased to report this did not happen and we found a much more solid stance after a few days. You see, my husband is the type of person to jump as soon as God says jump, even when the command is not quite finished. God was basically saying “jump to the left” and my husband heard “jump” and just started jumping. You might be asking “where were you in all of this?” I’m glad you asked! I am a “Ruth”. I consider the information in front of me, but I am ultimately loyal to my family no matter what. I was still a very new Christian - not quite a year in - and relied very heavily on my husband as I thought I wasn’t “there yet” when it came to hearing from God. I regularly used this excuse to keep the blame off of me when we could have made better decisions. We talked (this time I participated as a wife should) and ultimately came to the decision to try a different church- much more attainable and logical than a different continent.
We re-read Exodus and Leviticus to go back to the 10 commandments and God’s appointed feasts. We also re-read the gospels and Acts for guidance on how we as Gentiles were to apply these feasts and commandments to our lives. We know we are grafted into the true vine. We know we are not descendants of Israel (well, we are pretty positive. Our lineage is pretty hard to trace back that far - we have tried!) so certain pieces are not for us. We are not the ones to dwell in tents during Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) but the ones to wave branches for our savior. Now, I’m sure you are beginning to recognize a pattern in our family - we dive in headfirst to all things. Our hearts long to please God to the fullest extent (no, we are not doing works to “earn” our way into heaven; we just really want to make God smile!), and sometimes we take that a little far. We found a church that we felt aligned with our new view and began going. The church was Restoration Messianic Fellowship in Boulder, Colorado. They are a WONDERFUL church for that season in our life. We, again, were overzealous and went kosher, made tzit-tzits, tried to learn Hebrew, started praying “Jewish” prayers, and renounced all things Christmas (on December 16th). While that was a little extreme, it was incredibly enlightening. We realized how much the New Testament relies on the Old Testament for clarity. What a concept, right? When you really look at it that seems so simple! Well, in today’s world where you have 100 different sects of religion these simple ideas get very messy. I’ll spare you the details on the back and forth that we had for the next year, but I can assure you it was a rollercoaster! We took down our Christmas decorations on Decmeber 22nd, went to our Sabbath Service on December 23rd, took my mother and my Grandmother to our old church, Whitefields in Longmont, COlorado (this was my first church and where I came to know Christ. Again, a wonderful church for that season in my life!), for Christmas Eve service, had Christmas Eve and Christmas day celebrations per-usual with my family, and then went down the rabbit hole. We contemplated not having our children (well, child at the time) call us "mother" or "father" because our "research" lead us to scripture taken out of context regarding the use of titles. For the safety of your faith, I will not be sharing links to the false doctrines we came so close to following. We stopped going to church altogether a few months later after my husband got hurt and the church we were attending took "laying hands" a little too far and we realized it was false fire. Don't get me wrong, most of the people there really sought the Lord, but there was a lot of "doing what was right in their own eyes" and not falling on God's divine leadership. This happens EVERYWHERE and you will 100% not get away from it. We may not have realized it at the time, but reflection is a beautiful gift.
We have since come to a much more “level” realization. We read the bible and let the Holy Spirit be our interpreter. Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t look to outside sources or welcome other viewpoints; we just know our tendency to run with things and now test our spirit before leaping (as best as possible). We do our best to keep God at the forefront of our minds and hearts. We consider how our words and actions will portray Him. We do our best not to take His name in vain in word, thought, or action. We do honor the Sabbath and have our weekly Bellott Shabbat (check out our Challah recipe and Homemade Pizza recipe), we have daily bible time, we each take quiet time daily, we start our mornings off together with prayer, and we do a weekly in-depth study of one book (or part of one) as well as our weekly Torah portion. We have since stopped our Torah portion, however, we still use the Old Testament daily. The Torah portions are great and honestly, we will likely return to them as it is a structured way to learn the Bible with a logical order to it, however, our current season requires a more "if this than that" type of approach. We examine the New Testament scriptures with the Old Testament facts. My husband has recently started pursuing seminary knowledge which is one reason why our bible time looks different. Also, kids. Our two small children need more bite-sized pieces of the scripture, along with a "big picture" so oftentimes the beautiful details of, say, the Tabernacle are lost on them. We still read the scripture fully from our King James Version of the Bible, but we also have an illustrated family bible we use to recap, as well as different crafts, coloring pages, mini storybooks for them to color, and sometimes even songs to coincide with our family discussion. Even Emma, at a year and a half, participates to her ability in our morning and nightly devotionals.
Our journey is not one of perfection, but it is one of progress. Our journey is still developing and we are thankful we can share it with you. We would love to hear your story or answer any questions you may have; even have a friendly debate if that’s what you prefer! Leave a comment, send an email, or message us on Instagram!
Thank you for your support and God bless you!
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