Monday, 8 August 2016

Walking Back to Happiness,
Helen Shapiro, Fount/HarperCollins, 1994, page 274

Helen Shapiro describes the way in which she became a believer and relates how she prayed with her friends Bob and Penny. The first challenge to her newly committed life in Yeshua came immediately:

As we sat back in out seats Penny said, 'Well, you're a Christian.'

Shock horror. No I was not. To the Jewish mind the word Christian means somebody who hates Jews, an enemy of my people. I could not be identifieed with all the horrors that had been perpetrated against the Jewish people. I was Jewish. I was happy being Jewish. I did not want to be anything else.

Later, with hindsight, she wrote:

Since becoming a believer I'm more Jewish than ever I was before. I'm more familiar with the Scriptures. I understand more about G-d's relationship with us. I know why I'm a Jew, where my roots are. Most important of all I have a relationship with G-d. I don't just believe in him as some vague, faraway being, a I did when I was a child.