Santa Biblia

This sweet couple from my church who found out I'm going to Bolivia gave me a Spanish Bible last week (have I mentioned I love my church?).

I'm having a blast trying to read it. I thought it might be a good idea to go over some of my favorite passages in Spanish so that then when I'm on HNGR and feeling overwhelmed and like everything is alien, at least some words will be familiar. I want to get used to hearing from God in Spanish.

The problem, though, is that I'm realizing it's making me feel WAY over-confident in my Spanish skills (read: I don't really have any Spanish skills). Example: Psalm 139. I've had this memorized since, oh, about 10th grade? It's like my favorite ever. I read it every day for a month with Marissa this summer. It's not exactly random words to me.

So here's my thought process as I read:

"Señor, tú me examinas, tú me conoces. Sabes cuándo me siento y cuándo me levanto; aun a la distancia me lees el pensamiento... Oh yeah, I TOTALLY know what this means! Oh man, this is so easy. I am GREAT at Spanish. Let's see, 'At a distance... You read my thoughts'. Oh, CLEARLY. Oh yeah. Me and Spanish, we're totally down."

Right, because the fact that I KNOW THAT PASSAGE IN ENGLISH has NOTHING to do with the fact that I decided to translate "pensamiento" as "thoughts", even though I've never heard it before and if someone just threw it out in, oh, say, conversation (or a quiz!) I wouldn't have a clue.

So yeah, basically reading stuff I'm familiar with in English in Spanish makes me feel way more confident in my abilities than, oh, attempting to speak with someone does. I suppose this could be dangerous, but instead I'm just hoping it will have magical placebo-ish effects and that feeling all "I think I can, I think I can!" will mean I hop off the plane and immediately start chattering away like Salma Hayek. Es posible, no?!

But, even though someone coming up to me on the street and announcing, "I praise You because You knit me together in my mother's womb!" would prooobably not mean much out of context to my woefully-gringa ears at this point...

...the fact is, it is really fun to go over these words that I'm starting to be able to sort of pick out, and let God comfort me through another language... a beautiful one.

Take this passage:

Tu protección me envuelve por completo;
me cubres con la palma de tu mano.
Conocimiento tan maravilloso rebasa mi comprensión;
tan sublime es que no puedo entenderlo.

Your protection envelops me completely; You cover me with the palm of Your hand. This knowledge is too marvelous for my comprehension; it's so wonderful that I can't understand it.

Now that's just beautiful in any language.