THE BIBLE IN MY LIFE October 24, 2005 Issue

A BOOK WITHOUT COVERS

VIRGINIA STOPFEL

MY LOVE AFFAIR with the Bible began in fourth grade, in a oneroom schoolhouse in my home state of Maine. Miss McClellan came every two weeks with her big felt board, with felt cutouts of people, villages, etc., and told us wonderful Bible stories.

Moses' story was so real—hidden by his mom in a basket in the river, God talking to him from a burning bush, climbing Mt. Horeb to get the Ten Commandments, being fed by manna in the wilderness! It all made a big impression on me.

I had been taught not to lie or steal and so on, but I had never heard of the Ten Commandments. Getting this little glimpse of God, and of how He wanted us to live with Him and with each other, was the beginning of the Bible as an authority in my life.