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| Nympha: The Woman Who Opened Her Home |
Many years have passed since I lived as a young wife in Laodicea.
I have seen the followers of Jesus multiply far beyond the small gatherings I once knew.
People sometimes ask how I first came to believe.
I tell them about a woman named Nympha.
And a door I once refused to walk through.
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The first time Nympha invited me into her home, I told her no.
I knew what happened there.
Everyone in our part of Laodicea did.
People gathered beneath her roof to pray, break bread, and speak of a man named Jesus whom they called Lord. Some called them followers of the Way. Others had less generous names for them.
I preferred simply to stay away.
Nympha and I were not friends, though we knew one another well enough to exchange greetings. I often saw her in the marketplace buying bread, oil, or whatever was needed for her household. She spoke to merchants, servants, widows, and strangers with the same warmth.
One afternoon, as we stood near a merchant's stall, she surprised me.
“We gather at my home in the evening,” she said. “You would be welcome.”
“To do what?”
“To pray. To learn. To encourage one another.”
“And speak about your Jesus?”
A small smile crossed her face.
“Yes. We speak about Jesus.”
“Then no.”
I expected her to defend her beliefs. Instead, Nympha adjusted the basket on her arm.
“The door is open if you change your mind.”
“I won't.”
She nodded.
“Then I will see you another day.”
For months, I did.
In the months that followed, our paths crossed from time to time. I also passed her home as evening approached and noticed people entering. Men carrying baskets. Women with children. Older people walking slowly. Once I saw a servant enter shortly after a man whose clothing suggested considerable wealth.
That puzzled me.
People of different stations did not usually gather as though those differences meant nothing.
Still, I never went inside.
Then my husband died.
There was no long illness to prepare me. One morning he complained of pain in his chest.
Before nightfall, I was a widow.
For several days my home was full.
Relatives came. Neighbors brought food. Women sat beside me and spoke softly about grief and the necessity of continuing with life.
Eventually, they returned to their own homes.
And mine became quiet.
I discovered that grief sounds different at night.
During the day, the marketplace could distract me. But when darkness came, there was only the empty place beside me.
I had spent years believing I understood death. Everyone died. The gods determined what they determined, and mortals endured it.
That explanation had been sufficient when death belonged to someone else.
It was not sufficient when it entered my house.
One afternoon, someone knocked at my door.
It was Nympha.
She held a small loaf of bread wrapped in cloth.
“I heard about your husband.”
I stepped aside and allowed her in.
She placed the bread on my table and asked whether I was eating.
I said enough.
She looked at the untouched bowl beside the bread and knew I wasn't telling the truth.
But she did not correct me.
She sat with me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
I had forgotten how comforting it could be to have another person in the room who did not demand that I explain my sorrow.
When Nympha finally rose, I followed her to the door.
“Thank you for coming.”
She touched my arm.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
Then she left.
She did not mention Jesus.
She did not invite me to her home.
And strangely, that bothered me.
For days afterward, I thought about the invitation she had once given me.
The door is open if you change your mind.
I wondered whether it still was.
Several evenings later, I stood alone in my house as darkness settled over Laodicea.
I knew they would be gathering.
Perhaps I had finally grown tired of asking questions to an empty room. Perhaps grief had worn down the certainty with which I had once told Nympha no.
I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders and left home.
With every step toward Nympha's house, I considered turning back.
What would I say when I arrived?
I don't believe what you believe, but I am lonely?
My husband is dead, and now I have questions?
You invited me months ago. Does the invitation still stand?
By the time I reached her street, I had almost convinced myself to turn back.
Then I saw the light coming from her doorway.
People were entering.
I waited until the last of them disappeared inside before crossing the street.
Before I could knock, the door opened.
Nympha stood there.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
There was surprise on her face, but no triumph. No reminder that she had invited me before. No question about why I had changed my mind.
She simply stepped aside.
“Come in.”
And I did.
I sat near the back.
Someone gave me bread. A woman shifted to make room beside her. A man I had seen many times in the marketplace greeted me as though my presence required no explanation.
Then they began to speak about Jesus.
I had heard pieces of the story before.
That He had taught in Judea and Galilee.
That He had healed the sick.
That He had been crucified.
But that evening I heard something I had never understood.
They believed He had risen from the dead.
I listened more carefully.
They spoke of witnesses. Of apostles. Of a tomb that could not hold Him.
And then someone said that because Christ had risen, death did not have the final word.
No one there knew what those words did to me.
I thought of my husband. Of the morning he had spoken to me and the night when he could no longer answer. I had believed death was an ending because I had never been given a reason to believe otherwise.
But if what these people said was true—if Jesus had truly risen—then perhaps death was not as powerful as I had believed.
I could barely breathe.
Death had seemed to have every word in my house.
Yet here were people saying there was One who had defeated it.
I did not leave Nympha's house believing everything I had heard.
But I returned the following week.
And the week after that.
Nympha never pressured me. There was always a place, always bread, and always someone willing to answer my questions.
Sometimes Nympha sat beside me after the others had gone. She never seemed troubled by my questions, even when I asked the same ones more than once. When I spoke of my husband, she listened. When I spoke of death, she pointed me back to Christ. Little by little, I began to understand why she had opened her home in the first place. It wasn't merely a gathering place. It was a place where people could come close enough to hear about Jesus.
Slowly, the Jesus I had dismissed as their Jesus became the Lord I wanted to know.
I learned of His cross.
His mercy.
His resurrection.
And one evening, in the same house I had once refused to enter, I prayed with believers who had become my brothers and sisters.
I belonged to Christ.
Much later, a letter came from Paul.
Word traveled quickly that his message to the believers in Colossae was also to be read among the church in Laodicea.
So we gathered beneath Nympha's roof.
The letter was read aloud, and then came the words I would never forget.
“Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.”
People smiled and looked toward Nympha.
I looked toward the door.
I remembered standing on the other side of it.
I remembered telling her no.
And I remembered the evening she opened it and said only:
Come in.
🕊️ An Echoes of the Faithful Story
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