Editor's note: This post by Jeni Awerkamp originally appeared on her blog, My Hive. It has been posted here with permission.
I started studying scripture daily when I was 8 years old — but only because my maternal grandfather asked me to. "Jeni, will you read from your scriptures every single day?" Yes. I could do that (how could I disappoint my amazing grandpa?). That very night, I read five verses of scripture. The rest has been a formative history.
Seems like I blinked twice and suddenly I was 10 years old. One evening, my dad challenged me to move my scripture study up a notch: "Jeni, you're 10 years old now, and I bet you can read your scriptures for 10 minutes a night. Can you do that?" Yes. I could do that.
Starting then, I read my scriptures for 10 minutes every night. But again, mostly because Dad asked me to. However, I soon started to see the scriptures for what they were — a big story, made up of individual people's experiences with God — and I began to fall for the good word. I saw these people coming head to head with trials and their faith: Would they choose to believe or not? I saw that when they chose to believe in God — often when logical reasoning told them not to and when up against every kind of odd — God put them on top. Via their examples, I remember telling myself then, as a little 10-year-old, that I would always choose faith. I would be a believer, too. I felt my first personal connection to scripture then, and consequentially, for the first time in two years, I started studying for myself.
By the time I was 14, I was studying first thing every morning. Considering Paul's counsel from Ephesians 6:11-17, I saw it as my time to spiritually suit up:
"Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
Paul makes it explicitly clear there at the end: Pick up the sword of the Spirit — the sharpest, most divine and pervasive weapon imaginable — "which is the word of God." It seemed only right that I study in the morning, grabbing my sword in order to face the wild world every day.
I added two key elements to my study routine when I was 14: prayer and journaling. Before studying, I would kneel in prayer and ask, "Will you please speak to me today? I'd love to hear something from you. I'd love most of all to just feel your love." I started to end my studies with a prayer of thanks because inevitably (which was a miraculous thing to me), I would feel his love somehow, in some way, through whatever I had read.
Every day, I wrote something down from my study that I could potentially teach someone else. Taking notes in that approach taught me how to put scripture into my own words. Writing down my thoughts also opened up my heart. It was a beautiful phenomena that did not come with any forewarning: As I wrote my thoughts down, I could feel more as I read — more about who I really am, more from my dear God.
I can still see teenager Jeni sitting back one summer day at home, post scripture study, just after I had moved from my hometown to a brand new city. I'd been devastated by the change and was more than vulnerable. But in a moment there, I remember absolutely feeling that God's hand had been at play in my life, that I was supposed to be there, and that He would not be leaving my side any time soon. I felt close to God. I knew he was real. I knew that he had plans for me in that new place. Scripture study opened the front door of my heart, inviting him in to bring me that timely confidence and peace.
I maintained that culture of daily scripture study for the next eight years. I grew up in the gospel and closer and closer to God. Then something happened. I became a mother.
One of life's ironies is that as heaven comes to your arms via a perfect newborn baby, a new mother's closeness to the Spirit and to God in her mind and heart has the potential to wane. You're exhausted. You have to sleep (but you never sleep). You're busy. You have to get up and work for that sweet, little child. When — how — could I possibly wake up before my baby, sit down and read my scriptures? I felt kind of helpless toward taking care of my spirit and testimony during the first weeks of my first daughter, Olivia's, life. Carving out time to spiritually feast just seemed impossible.
Thank heaven for the spiritually life-saving epiphany that soon struck me. After three weeks of trying to survive with little-to-no scripture study, an idea hit loud and clear: "Read with Olivia. Can you do that?"
Yes. I could do that.
