Evangelical: Personal Story

The Evangelical Tradition is a "Word Centered" life. We come to understand ourselves as formed and sustained by God's Sacred Word, The Bible. Below, Bobbie writes of her first encounter with The Word in college. Notice her places of connection and see if the mirror your own.


By Bobbie Jo Morrell

Living across the hall from Drusha brought me into contact with many of her other friends. They were an odd bunch; smiling a lot, carrying big leather bound Bibles around, and when they met me, they really looked at me—and still smiled. They dressed like yuppies (it was 1983), and seemed to call themselves “Navigators.”

I watched them curiously, cautiously, out of the corner of my eye—trying to figure out what made them different. One day it struck me like a blow: they were all Christians! Could that have something to do with it?

Being a scientist by training, I sought out source material to research this Christian thing. It was difficult to look nonchalant ambling through the church library in search of a Bible. Surreptitiously I began to read, beginning—of course—in Genesis.

I believe some of those “navigators” were a bit alarmed at my starting there, but in the Old Testament I found an amazing adventure: The world was created in a glorious symphony of words; the earth flooded, then saved; plagues fell on Egypt; the Red Sea parted and a pillar of fire led the people through; Joshua and company crossed the Jordan dry shod, and the sun stood still for them at his prayer.

Here was a world like JRR Tolkien’s world! Good and evil—danger, courage, and victory—magic: good and bad. The Bible showed me a world like Middle Earth, with a difference: I sensed strongly that this world was real, true—and I could be a part of the story if I wanted to. A beautiful, attractive thought—hadn’t I wished for just such a thing? But I found it also rather alarming.

In the middle of my reading, Drusha (to whom I had confessed my research) suggested reading Matthew together. That way I could learn about this Jesus person, too. I agreed: and the same thing happened here: prophecies were filled, prophecies were spoken; fish and bread multiplied profusely, mysteriously; the hero walked on the boisterous sea as though it were the smoothest highway. This man, this Jesus, really seemed to know who he was and what he was meant to do. Again, a real adventure was being offered to me. Would I join in?

But there was also a difference here. This story was about a bold rescue mission deep in enemy territory. Real danger—torture and death—was necessary to forge the passage out of the prison for those trapped. And I began to see that I was one of the prisoners that Jesus had gone to such lengths to rescue. While somewhat comforting, it was really alarming.

For weeks I wandered along this razorback ridge that I’d somehow ended up on. Both sides of the ridge were dark, frightening. Down one side was the darkness I knew: drinking, despair, death. The other was even more impenetrable: the darkness of the hope of the possibility of hope.


Parts of me longed desperately to walk into that dark hope, but most of me was terrified of it. Yet I knew a time would come to choose my darkness.