Artis
Most kids ask questions, and some ask so many and such deep ones that they are always in trouble. They are generally the ones who refuse to be put off with the simplistic answers offered by busy adults-even if that adult is their rabbi. Artis was that kind of kid.
Raised by her mother and grandparents in the traditions of Reform Judaism, Artis' religious education as a child was thorough. In Temple and Sunday School from the age of five, she became bat mitzvah at 14 following a year of intense study in the Tenach (Jewish Scriptures) with the rabbi.
Deep questions arose when she read Isaiah 1:18-20:
"Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord:
Though your sins be as scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.
If you arewilling and obedient,
You shall eat the good of the land;
But if you refuse and rebel,
You shall be devoured with the sword;
For the mouth of the LORD hath spoken."
She wanted to reason with God over that passage, knowing that some of her family had not survived the Holocaust. What disobedience was causing the Jewish people to die by the edge of the sword rather than enjoying God's blessing? And if her sins were forgiven, why did she still feel so guilty after Yom Kippur, fasting and praying, and confessing her transgressions?
Figuring that the rabbi would understand her desire to know what God wanted from her, she went to reason with him. The answer was, "Stop asking so many questions!" That day, the search for truth seemed to begin deep in her hungry heart.
Years later, while living with an Orthodox Jewish family, Artis met Leonard, a believer in Yeshua (Jesus) who was serving in the Air Force. Through him, Artis learned that the forgiveness she sought, that the access to God she longed for, was indeed available. Messiah had come, just as the Jewish Bible had predicted! The promises were true, the prophecies had been fulfilled, and best of all, her sins could be changed from scarlet to snow-white.
