Meeting Lesley Ramsay
How did you come to faith in Christ?
I grew up in an ordinary, non-Christian, but loving family. I was sent to Sunday School as a child to get a good 'moral education'. I hated Sunday School, thought it was boring and irrelevant and begged my parents to be able to leave, but they said I needed to keep going till I was confirmed 'because that was the like the leaving certificate from church, and after that you wont have to go anymore!'. In God's great kindness and under his good timing I heard the gospel of grace in Confirmation class. I was a 'good girl', a favourite of my parents and teachers, and so to hear that God regarded me as rotten to the core and his enemy was very disturbing - actually shocking! But he loved me enough to make me his.
What do you most love about reading?
Being able to escape into other worlds/times/people's lives. Words have this wonderful capacity to paint a picture in my mind that is far more meaningful to me than a visual image
What is your favourite novel?
That depends on the stage of life I am at, and who I am reading at the time. When I was younger it was Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. A few years ago I got into Alexander McCall Smith's novels. I first read his Ladies Detective Agency novels because of my connection with Africa, but have also loved his Scotland Street series. I have also been confronted by the ethical issues in Jodi Piccoult's novels.
What book(s) has helped you most in growing in your knowledge of God?
Along with the Scriptures, the books would have to be Jim Packer's Knowing God (every Christian ought to read it before they die) and Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. I read them both as a young Christian and I remember them being mind-blowing at the time.