Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor: The Bible in my life

T. Jewell Collins

My first recollection of the Bible goes back to my early Sunday School days in the Episcopal church that my parents attended. The Sunday School room had a large sand table, like a sandbox on legs. After hearing Bible stories read to us, we were led to the sand table, where we created oases, formed dunes, and peopled them with cardboard depictions of the Bible characters in the stories. What I learned of these Bible stories in that Sunday School provided a foundation on which to continue building, and I recall those days with fondness.

Some time later, a friend gave me a Bible (she already had one) that had been awarded to her for excellent Sunday School attendance in the Congregational Sunday School. I liked it because all of Jesus’ words were printed in red ink. In public school my acquaintance with the Bible was reinforced through opening exercises at the start of each day, comprised of citations from the Bible, chosen and read by students, and the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.

When a group of Christian Scientists began holding public services in our town, my mother decided to return to the denomination of her youth, Christian Science, and enrolled me in the Sunday School, where my familiarity with the Bible expanded in a new context. Now I was learning that I had the same access to God as the Bible characters had, that His presence in my life could result in guidance and healing, as it had for those luminaries in biblical days.

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