Mary Magdalene isn’t called a prostitute in the Gospels. In John’s account, the risen Jesus sends her to tell the others. This goes out to you if you have lost your faith in church but still want God in your life. 1. You can be angry with a church and still want to pray. The people who hurt you don’t own that relationship. Jesus told people to go into a room, close the door and speak to their Father. 2. Jesus taught his followers to address God as their Father. You can begin there, before you’ve worked out what to say or whether you deserve to be heard. 3. The cross didn’t persuade God to love you. God so loved the world that he gave his Son. The love was there before the cross. 4. Thomas wanted evidence. Jesus came back and invited him to examine his wounds. There’s room in that encounter for the question you’re afraid to ask. 5. Being frightened of God isn’t a measure of how close you are to him. First John describes perfect love casting out fear. 6. The kingdom of God has a present tense. In Luke 17, you’ll find “within you” in some translations and “in your midst” in others. Either way, you don’t have to wait until death to begin looking for it. 7. You can take the Bible seriously and still notice the human hands on it. Poems, laws, letters to particular communities. Luke opens his Gospel by explaining that he investigated accounts handed down by eyewitnesses. 8. Your neighbor’s birthplace isn’t a verdict on their soul. Peter had to learn that God shows no favoritism. In Acts 10, he says God accepts people from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 9. Women helped pay for Jesus’s ministry out of their own means. Luke names Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna among the people supporting the work. 10. Jesus probably laughed more than the paintings suggest. They accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard because of his eating and drinking. People kept inviting him to dinner. 11. A man was born blind, and the disciples wanted to know whose sin had caused it. Jesus refused to blame him or his parents. Before you decide that your suffering is punishment, read John 9. 12. Jesus had a working life before he had crowds. Mark calls him a carpenter. Luke passes from him at 12 to about 30 with almost nothing about the years between. 13. John places the Word before creation and then says the Word became flesh. The baby in the manger was older than the stars he was born under, folded down into helplessness on purpose. 14. There is maternal tenderness in the text too. “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” That is God speaking through Isaiah. 15. Jesus wept at a friend’s grave. Faith in what comes after death leaves room for missing someone so badly you can’t speak. 16. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells a man to leave his gift at the altar and first make peace with his brother. If you’re wondering where to begin, there may be someone you need to call. 17. God is not finished with the world. Revelation gives us a future in which tears are wiped away and death is gone. That belongs in your reading of it alongside the frightening images. 18. If your faith has left you feeling alone, remember Elijah. He thought he was the only faithful person left. God told him there were 7,000 others. 19. If your faith got stronger after you left, you don’t have to pretend otherwise. You can grieve the leaving and still be glad you went. 20. Eternal life, in Jesus’s prayer in John 17, is knowing God. You can begin that relationship here, with the life you’re actually living. 21. Nothing in all creation can separate you from God’s love in Christ. Paul ends Romans 8 with that conviction. Read it again on the day you’re certain you’ve used up your chances.