Annabel Robinson

Regina, Sask.

After 40 years of teaching Greek, Latin and the ancient world at the University of Regina, Annabel Robinson says she loved her work so much that she “couldn’t bear to think of being retired and was very annoyed” at the mandatory retirement regulations of the time.

Fortunately her annoyance was destined to be short lived. “In retrospect,” she reflects, “if I had known what a future there was for me after retirement, I might have retired sooner.”

That future would turn out to have deep roots in her past – when, as a teen living in Britain, she became a Christian through the ministry of Scripture Union (SU). She continued to follow Scripture Union’s work with interest throughout her life. Shortly after she retired she read in an email that SU Canada had just appointed Lawson Murray as their new president. The email mentioned Murray had just done his thesis on Bible engagement.

“I was so interested in that, that I wrote to him and said, ‘Sometime when I’m in Toronto I’d love to meet you.’ ”

It so happened she was in Toronto three weeks later. She met Murray at a local coffee shop and learned he was looking for someone to edit a new daily online Bible reading guide SU Canada was planning.

“I said, ‘Let me think about that.’ I thought for about five minutes and said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ ”

That was more than a decade ago. The volunteer position would turn out to be everything she loved – writing, editing, searching the Scriptures. Today theStory: A Bible Reading Guide Connecting Our Stories With God’s Story is a free, chronological reading guide that emphasizes the biblical narrative, unpacking the whole of Scripture in about five years. Robinson oversees the project and has written extensively for it since its inception.

“It has been my experience that whenever something we love doing comes to an end, God has something better for us that we could not have foreseen,” Robinson says.