So a few months ago, Katie started watching the new Fox show, Sleepy Hollow. It's a detective/supernatural/thriller program, featuring Mr. Long-hair hottie as Ichabod Crane, who is now supposed to be a real-life character, resurrected after 250 years and connected through a blood link to the Headless Horseman, who is now supposed to be Death, the first of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (whew!). He investigates supernatural-type crimes in modern day Sleepy Hollow, somewhere in New England, with Abbie, a cop in the local sheriff's office who has had her own brushes with the supernatural as a child, and favors low-cut shirts -- apparently some kind of union thing among all female TV cops. Together, these two fight against the forces of EVIL (which is not the name of an evil organization, like K.A.O.S., but since the forces are actually satanic, they get capital letters from me), and are referred to as the "two witnesses" from the book of Revelations.
Ohhh-kay, Sara, thanks for the TV Guide update, but why do I care? Fair question. Here's the thing. Katie kept after me to watch this show with her, but since I scare a lot more easily than I used to, I was hesitant, then she started using the Bible angle on me - "Mom, the horseman is one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse," as if the horsemen and I are all tight, and I need to watch any show they might be featured in?! So, in a possible epic parent fail, I agreed to start watching the show, but only if she would agree to do a Bible study with me on each episode. So now, every week I have Katie help me pull up an episode, then watch it, pausing it whenever a biblical theme or verse is mentioned, then I switch over to an open Word document to type out some question that draws us back to biblical truth. For example, the episode I caught up on last week was named, "Sin Eater" and one of my questions was: "Jenny describes a sin eater as someone who reaches inside your soul and rids you of your sin. Who deals with sin for believers and how?"
Katie and I have met 4-5 times so far, with varying degrees of success, from my perspective. It's been hard for me to find the time and the inclination to watch a program that's not in my "wheelhouse" and then find more time to write and research Bible-related questions on it. But God, in His graciousness, when I was just about ready to give up and stop watching these scary shows and pushing through these discussions with Katie, really blessed us with such a good talk last week. It was fun to discuss some character development, who we were "shipping" (characters you'd like to see in a relationship), good talk through the Bible passages, etc.
I've been thinking a lot during this New Year season about God's purposes for my life and where He might want to take me in the next few years. I don't know for sure what He has in store, or where I'm going in the years ahead. But sometimes, we (meaning mostly I) just need to make a little more effort to connect with the people He has put right in front of our faces, meeting them at their level, talking about what they are interested in, rather than trying to squeeze them into our predetermined ideas of how things and people should turn out. For now, I am quite content to work a little harder in this area, and see what we both will learn as a result.