For YEARS I have lamented the fact that I spent my college years chasing around from one Navigator training situation to another, mostly at my parents behest, and finished four years of scattered education with just an AA degree. I always told Bern that if I had gotten my undergrad degree I could have gone to seminary. I felt sad and regretful....
These conversations usually ended with Bern saying that perhaps a seminary would recognize my life and ministry experiences and give me credit for them. Ha! I thought, who would do that?
Then my daughter had the brilliance to marry Kevin Martins who is a born researcher, as well as a kind and considerate son-in-law. Kevin, in the midst of applying to Fuller himself, discovered that there is a track called "Special Student" which accepts people on the basis of their life and ministry experience.
WooHoo! So now I am applying to seminary!
Why would a grandma like me want to do this? There is nothing I love more than seeing the light come on when I help other people understand the Bible. I have been teaching it for years, but if I really want to do it "professionally" I need some credentials. An M.Div. will help me with that. Also, I am really looking forward to testing myself in an academic environment.
Sometimes people ask the question "When you were a kid, what was your favorite day of the year?"
Most people say Christmas or their birthday. My answer is always, "The first day of school!" I loved that day every year, the new classes, the new books, pens, pencils and paper. I loved my school clothes and the new shoes that were going to rub my heels raw for a couple of weeks. I loved being with other kids and meeting a new teacher. Summer was my least favorite time, when there was nothing new to learn and the days were long and boring.
So maybe, pretty soon, I will have another first day of school. It will be different this time, but I look forward to it anyway, maybe more than ever!
By the way, now I know the immense value of the time I spent with the Navigators in those early years. Everything they taught me has been useful and there has never been another time in my life when I could have gotten that rich and wonderful training. I thank God for my parents' choices for me and for the Navs who invested in me in those years. My life has been deeply blessed because of them.
Almost all of those Navigators were self-taught lay people whose only motivation for teaching others was their passion for Christ and desire to obey Him. They did not teach what they did not practice, so I learned as much from their examples in life as I did from their teaching.
For this reason I am sending you Timothy, my son whom I love,
who is faithful in the Lord.
He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus,
which agrees with what I teach everywhere, in every church.
I Cor. 4:17
It was probably the closest I will ever get to how the Early Church functioned and it was truly a gift to my life.
I was blessed then...and now I am being blessed again!
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