During the pandemic, I have been reading the Bible each day with my nephew over the phone

My Bible: reasons to believe in the power of the Bible

‘During the pandemic, I have been reading the Bible each day with my nephew over the phone. He lives on his own and is a key worker, so I knew this would be a challenging time for him.

‘We started at the beginning, in Genesis, and now we are on Joshua. We can read between one and three chapters a day. We normally read in the morning, for about an hour. We take alternate verses, but if there are some difficult words then I read those. Over lunch we talk about what we’ve read. He’s only 23 and I think it’s really helping him to concentrate on God.

‘I’ve got ME and fibromyalgia, and have carers who come in to help me each day. I often don’t have any energy. But, I felt that God put this on my heart. Sometimes, when we’ve finished reading, I’m so tired that I feel like I could crawl across the floor, but it’s been such a privilege. It’s been so encouraging for him and for me.

‘We’ve read a lot, but Deuteronomy 4:32 sticks in my mind. It says, “Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?”

‘That reminded me of the importance of discernment. My nephew is young, and on social media. I’m sure that there’s lots of good things there, but it’s not easy to be discerning. We talked about it, after we’d read this. It really opened his eyes and he realised that some things haven’t been helpful.’

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