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It went fairly well. We started discussing the book/booklet that Marge gave me last week. We looked up different scriptures that are mentioned on pages 4 and 5 of the book. The references are:
- Revelation 21:4
- Isaiah 35:5-6
- Isaiah 33:24
- John 5:28-29
- Psalm 72:16
When we got to chapter one, Marge asked me if I wanted to go on, but I asked her if I could read something to her that I had received. She responded positively, so here's what I read...
It's from The Voice of the Martyrs. (Neither Marge nor Bobbye had heard of them.) It's a Special Report dated December 2007 entitled, "When Violence Touches Children." I read quite a bit of it aloud to them. They were a bit fidgety as I read, but they didn't interrupt! (I take that as a small victory! Anything I can get!) This opened the discussion to forgiveness and God's protection. I don't know that we really "got" anywhere in the discussion, but at least the topic was no longer on their book.
As they were leaving, I asked Marge if she remembered what we (she and I) had said about me reading something of hers and she reading something of mine. When I handed it (I'll tell you what "it" was in a minute) to her, she asked me where it came from and what I had understood after reading it. So, I showed her that I had printed it from the Internet and started reading it aloud to her (and to Bobbye) to indicate what I understood from it. Bobbye started getting really defensive, then. Before that, she had been much more pleasant and polite. She wasn't rude, but I could tell that I had hit on a "hot button."
I'd like to note here that Marge has never been defensive, unpleasant or impolite... as I feel that some (of the others [namely Lou and Bobbye... not the "first" guy or her husband] with whom she has come) have been.
Here's a link to what I had printed from the TowerWatch Ministries website and gave to Marge. If you go to that link and read, you can probably see what hit a "hot button" with Bobbye. I read aloud from this sentence:
Due to health problems my 95-year-old grandmother moved in with our family in the early 1990's and needed 24 hour care.
to this sentence:
Publishers sold their homes, quit their jobs or took other life changing measures to prepare for the end in those years just as I did and saw many others do in 1975.
Marge has mentioned before, and she mentioned again today, that her mother developed cancer. (I don't know for sure how long ago this was, but I get the feeling it was around the time she married.) Marge says she began reading the Bible more trying to find out why God would allow her mother to suffer in this way. Basically, I think she was trying to "lead into" her book with a personal example. So, I tried to reference her experience with her mother's cancer to the health problems of the writer's 95-year-old grandmother (mentioned above).
In the end, Marge did take the printout with her, and I encouraged them to find out things for themselves. Marge will be out of town next week. She asked if I wanted Bobbye to come back next week, and I said that I really wanted to meet with Marge. Marge seemed pleased that I would want to meet with her. So, she plans to come back on December 19th.
Thank you for your prayers, not only for me... but also for Marge Tipton. Pray that the Holy Spirit would not let her rest until she discovers and accepts the REAL Truth about Jesus Christ.
