Sharing the Book with my Daughter
I shared my book with my daughter Becky who lives in Japan and teaches English to elementary and preschool children.
Becky identified how she best experiences God through Intellect, Tradition and Ritual, Activism and The Senses. She experiences God through the people who have come before her. She recognizes the lessons to be learned from them, and how it helps her to experience God in the present time as she connects with people in the past. Traditions and rituals motivate her to research their history. Then in her research she experiences God intellectually as she gains knowledge and understanding.
Becky is a creative writer and artist. She is currently writing and illustrating a Japan comic series. Her desire is to make a difference in the secular culture through the entertaining world of comics. Her experience of God through Activism is therefore subtle as she writes into her story godly values and Biblical principles.
Becky was an track athlete in high school and was an art major and a Japanese major in college. She recognized that in these areas of her life she experienced God (and still experiences Him) through beauty and senses. She expressed an interesting twist to experiencing God through her senses. Four years ago she injured her left thumb and hand in a snow boarding fall. It has been misdiagnosed and improperly threated by medical doctors for four years. Thank God one doctor has finally taken a promising approach to her injury! In the last four years, Becky has lived with the inability to use her thumb sometimes completely and sometimes partially. Through this difficulty, Becky has experienced God, as He fills the emptiness in her life created by this injury. God makes beautiful again in her life that which was taken from her by this injury. She cannot snowboard, has trouble drawing, cooking, tying her shoes and opening water bottles, etc.
Becky identified how other family members best experience God. We enjoyed talking about that and comparing our personal insights.
Becky saw the creativity of God in a fresh new way in this book. She is excited to apply this vast creativity to her teaching, her writing, her artwork, her problem solving skills and to every aspect of her life. She is also mindful that Satan, the enemy and imitator of God seeks to confuse, lead astray and destroy people. Knowing and understanding God better helps us recognize Satan's work and helps resist him. Becky seeks to better reflect the character of God to the culture in which she lives.