Prayer Bibles

 

Last year I started a habit of playing random YouTube videos while I worked on projects at my desk. Sometimes I’ll play thrifting hauls, sometimes home tours, and sometimes tutorials. I try to pick things that I don’t have to pay super close attention to, so I can work on my project at hand. I like to listen and glance up occasionally when something sounds extra interesting.

                During one of those watch-fests, I happened upon the channel for Selah Way Sisters, and found a string of videos about making prayer Bibles. I think I did far more actual watching of these videos than casual glancing while working on something else, and I knew immediately that if I was hired for the role at church, I wanted to make these for every deacon couple.

                Let me explain what prayer Bibles are, and if you want more insights and tutorials, you can watch the videos linked above.

                Prayer Bibles are journaling Bibles that have been marked with sticky tab flags to guide you to Scriptures on specific topics. If you’re making one, you can even write prayers or notes to the recipient in the journaling margin to further address the topics at hand. You can make a prayer Bible for any occasion: illness, life milestone (like marriage or having a baby), or a season of searching about a particular issue.

                Our deacons serve our congregation by tending to families as they walk different parts of life. They might call, text, send a card, go visit in person, or pray with someone. And sometimes they might need quick access to what Scripture says on a certain topic.

                So last fall, even before I was hired, I sat down and brainstormed ten topics that might be likely to surface for this group most regularly. Then I researched ten verses on each of those topics to mark. I tucked my scribbled lists away in my drawer and tried to have great hope that I would one day be able to complete this project.

                In January, I ordered a stack of these journaling Bibles and a set of these sticky note tabs and got to work marking these prayer Bibles.

                The topics I chose were: salvation, God’s love, thanks, joy, trust, faith, hope, waiting, comfort, and death/grief.

                I wrote each of those topics on a tab and arranged them inside the front cover of the Bible with a tiny sliver of the tab extending beyond the edge of the page.

                Then I wrote the references for each of the corresponding verses on tabs of the same color as the topic tab and placed them on the page of the Bible containing those verses so they could be easily found by looking beyond the topic tab. 

                Throughout the second half of January, I tried to mark a Bible or two every day that I had a stretch of time available to work on them. (I had nine to make. This took a while.) I’d sit down at my desk, with a cup of coffee near enough to drink but far enough to not be a spilling hazard, open a new Bible and a new set of tabs, and mark my verses. 

                My scribbled lists weren’t pretty, but they were functional, and they even became friends of sorts while I worked. I typed out a prettier version for posterity, but I preferred to work from my scribbled lists that took me back to the days of waiting in active hope.

                I finished my project just in time – two days before I needed to hand them out at a deacon meeting. 

                I wanted to cry with a mix of joy and relief at the sight of the finished stack. My back ached from hunching and gripping the Sharpie, but the knowledge that this group will have an extra layer of equipped ease to serve their congregation was more than worth it to me. 

                I tucked the extra tabs inside the front cover so they can add more if they find additional passages on any of these topics that they want to also quickly access. This is just the starting point, not an exhaustive list. 

                All tab color schemes were different, so no two Bibles are alike, but they’re all so pretty. 

                I wrote notes to each couple inside the front cover and prayed over the Bibles and the recipients.

                Sunday morning, I distributed them at the end of the deacon meeting, and my heart was full as these little Bibles made their way to their new homes to be used in whatever manner each couple chooses.

                My back and I are pleased to take a break from this project, but I really did love it, and I would absolutely make more – even choosing different topics for different parts of life.

                (Note: The Selah Way Sisters website has some downloadable PDFs on different topics to guide you to Scriptures on those topics if you need some help…and they have recently released a reusable flag aligner to help you make your flags nice and straight. I do not have this and did all mine by visual alignment, but let my hours of work tell you that if you plan to make these often, this little gadget would be a worthwhile investment to make your life easier. It isn’t cheap, but if you’re going to make many of them, buy it.)