Lived-In Bible

 

I’ve written before about different Bibles I’ve owned in different seasons of my life. I have quite a collection in a variety of versions and colors, and if you pulled them from the shelf and thumbed through them, you would find notes, highlights, underlines, and evidence of the things I learned from the Lord in different parts of my life.

                The high school/college Bible – that carried me through all the angst of those tumultuous years.  

                The Bible of my twenties, with all the verses that carried me through the hard, single years.

                The desert Bible, where you’d find scribbles of bright yellow, marking all the verses that walked me through the dark.

                I used some longer than others, so there are a handful of Bibles on the shelf that didn’t see a lot of marking and notations, and others are full from margin to margin.

                My present Bible has been my daily companion for almost four years now, and as I cracked it open to look for something the other day, I found pages filled from margin to margin – and supplemented with various sticky notes. I found other pages that haven’t yet been marked up, reminding me that I have so much to learn, study, and explore.

                Pink and yellow flags jut from the side, marking verses that have been meaningful to me in the last few weeks. Sticky note tabs stick up from the top, marking the verses I read every single day at the end of last fall while I struggled in the most recent darkness.

                The once-blank interleaved pages are slowly filling with notes from teachers, preachers, commentators, and authors. I’ve scribbled dates in margins, marking days when my faith was tested and the Sword of the Spirit helped me fight my battles.

                I clung to these pages as we lived our final months at WillowBridge and wrestled with the right decisions to make.

                I clung to these pages in the years of trying to find the job that fit me – wrestling with so many that did not.

                I clung to these pages as we prayed our way through a huge decision a couple of years ago – one that would have changed everything about our little family.

                I clung to these pages as I searched for God’s call on my life.

                These pages and I have lived some stories. We’ve wrestled through some tough battles.

                I’ve fallen asleep clutching this Bible and gasped in the words when I literally couldn’t breathe. I’ve read in delighted joy as I celebrated beautiful praises.

                This Bible is lived-in. The pages are a little frayed. The binding is cracking in places. It falls open to passages that have been extra meaningful.

                I love a lived-in Bible. For as much as I love a fresh, blank page and the wonder of living life with a new Bible, I also love a tried-and-true friend, like this Bible has become for me. There are so many yet-to-be studied parts of this Bible that I plan to live with it a good many more years yet.

                I’m thankful. So thankful for this friend of a Bible. I hope all of you have had at least one Bible like this one – the life-story Bible. The good-friend Bible. My testimony is woven through these pages, and it’s priceless to me.