home | contact
Juli discovered a new way of life in the pages of scripture

Fluency in God's Word

When Juli Grabeklis first stepped into the culture of retail merchandising, the tribal language was foreign to her ear.

Von Maur colleagues tossed about acronyms like MOB and MOS and EOM. “I didn’t know the lingo. It was all so foreign to me.”

Juli quickly became fluent in the glossary of retail terms. “I’m like a sponge when I want to learn something,” says she. MOB: Mother of the bride. MOS: Marked out of stock. EOM: End of month. Soon she could join in the fast-paced native conversation.

For this avid learner, tuning her ear to the cadence and vocabulary of scripture has been a similar experience. Galatians. Resurrection. Damascus. Liturgy. A few years ago, the words and phrases of the Bible and worship were foreign to Juli’s ear.

She had a Bible, given to her at confirmation. In her adult life, this Bible was dusty, translated in archaic language. She wasn’t even sure where it was.

But now Juli’s spiritual imagination is fed daily by Bible reading. She has quite a story — from “foreign” to “fluent” — and she’s eager to share. It began when a sharp pain in her back and shoulder got her attention.

She had been told that surgery was the only answer to this unbearable pain. “Ron and I were going to Maine soon. I hadn’t been in church in all the years I’d known Ron. Before we left for Maine, I lay down on the bed and prayed to God,” Juli remembers. “Please, God, please take away this pain while I’m in Maine and I promise I’ll go to church.”

The third day in Maine, Juli’s pain was gone. And it never came back.

“I’m thinking: ‘I’m going to go to church. Thanks, God.’ It wasn’t until we were home, in the backyard on a Saturday night, when I told Ron the whole story. I had no idea what he would say.”

Ron’s response? “What church are we going to?”

Juli had heard that St. Paul was a “pretty cool church.” Ron knew where it was. So that’s where they landed — and found a home. On that first Sunday, Juli was startled by Pastor Marty’s sermon illustration about a woman bargaining with God about her sick child. “He said that you don’t have to make pacts with God, that God is with you all the time.”

Whatever propelled Juli through the St. Paul doors — even a divine bargain — she’s convinced that “God has taken me to St. Paul or to church or to God for a reason.”

Church life was all so new to Juli. The sweep of God’s saving history in scripture. The sitting and standing of worship. She began soaking up the lingo and culture “like a sponge.” It was in the somber darkness of her first Good Friday service here that the biblical story hit home. “I was so emotional,” she remembers. “All these years, I didn’t know the story in my heart, what it means to me and my life.”

Juli and husband Ron (whose last name is Rimrodt) signed up for an ALPHA course on Monday evenings. In the retail world, Mondays are impossibly frantic with post-weekend sales reports. But Juli prioritized this journey of faith. She and Ron hit it off famously with their small group. Religion and God became a new conversation topic in the Grabeklis-Rimrodt household.

ALPHA concluded, and Juli didn’t want to let go of the connection. “Get out your calendars right now!” she urged. Ever since, the women of her ALPHA group have hung together and grown through five Bible studies.

Daily, Juli weathers the intensity of the success-driven retail world. She manages an array of Von Maur merchandise from women’s coats to swimwear. The hours are long and stressful. But she hears the voice of a constant companion. “Sometimes I turn my head and say, ‘Come on, God, you’ve got to help me today.’” She’s not bargaining with God, mind you, but gratefully thanking God for the gift of this day.

In study and worship, Juli’s biblical imagination is nourished. The Life Application Study Bible — with its helpful background notes — gets a daily morning workout now. Juli was delighted recently when she realized she could bypass the index and turn directly to the book of Ephesians.

When she’s serving as assisting minister on occasion, Juli scans the faces of the 8:00 congregation. She loves God, she loves reading the age-old stories of scripture, and she loves those people. Every Sunday, she makes it a practice to get to know at least one person who is new to her.

“I didn’t know anything that first day when I prayed. Now I can see God’s hand in all of it.” Perhaps that’s why Juli’s commitment for being in the Word is so infectious. “I just want others to be as enthusiastic as I am!”

fpu

Juli has discovered a new way of life in the pages of scripture. You can join in too. Be part of Book of Faith>>

  ::  

"Faith is a way of looking at what is seen and understanding it in a new sense." ~Frederick Buechner