God, today something happened that in so many ways I wish didn’t. My backpack with my camera and 800 pictures, wallet, computer charger, journal and worst of all my BIBLE were stolen. Really everything in that bag I don’t care as much about as I do my Bible. God, only you really know how much that book meant to me. I wanted to keep it for the rest of my life. Everyone around me would tell me to get a new one but I never wanted to part with it. That bible is my physical representation of my spiritual journey from when I first became a TRUE Christian. It has rips down the cover from being thrown across rooms when I hated you. Both happy and sad tear stains amongst the pages, ripped and folded pages from being crammed into bags, bugs have been squished with it, it’s been my pillow, notes from my little kiddos hidden within the pages, super feedback notes from my WR team mates, the names of Indian kids and how to say “Jesus loves you” in their Indian language. It’s where I first found my favourite Bible verse. Where all my heart poured out within the lines and pages. Where every thought that crossed my mind happened. When you God would blow my mind with how wonderful you are. How the same verses were covered with multiple colors because I read it at different stages of my life. How I would just sit and stare as I flipped though the pages sometimes in absolute awe of how far you have taken.
I will miss all the familiarity that book had to me. How no matter where in the world I was, what part of life I was in, that black, ripped YWAM Bible was the only familiar thing to me. How it was my physical representation of my salvation, my Christ, He is always there. Just in the same way that that Bible was to me. A couple days before it was stolen I spent the time taping up the edges, fixing the spine and securing baby Declan’s picture in the front cover. I got it ready for it’s tenth wind. I also said to a teammate, “I know that one day God will tell me to give this away to someone.” I also said long ago that if anyone were to ever rob me I hope that they would steal my Bible. Sure enough, it happened. God you have been preparing me for this for a long time. You always had it in my heart that one day it would belong to someone else. God, I pray that who ever ends up with it will be saved. God, move in that person’s heart. I hope that when I am in heaven, I can meet the PEOPLE that that Bible helped bring to know you.
God, may that Bible change lives. May it change lives in the same way that it changed mine and all the people around me. Lead it to where it is meant to go. Let them know that I love them and that they are not forgotten, but have been sought after. That I have spent the last 6 years of my life preparing their Bible for them. It has always been theirs. I was just chosen to be the messenger.
God, I give you my Bible. My loss is their gain. Thank you God for choosing me to help bring another one into your Kingdom. It is all to glorify YOU.
Thank you for how far in life you have taken me through those pages. How you have in scripted them into my heart. And how I can never actually loose you. May the picture of baby Ducky taped on the front bring joy to whoever looks at it. May the verses and notes that I took in it preach to their hearts.
God, I realise that that old Bible held my true salvation and my journey through some of the toughest of times. It was a marker of my life. An entire life on it’s own. It brought me a new life.
The amazing Keeton whom we only met a few days prior gave me a new Bible. One that was sentimental to him. His very own Study Bible. He gave it to me. To have. God, that was one of the nicest things that anyone has ever done for me. I feel like its not MY own yet though. I’m not ready to open it. The text style is unfamiliar, my little notes aren’t everywhere, its not the same shape or size, and the font is so much smaller. And it doesn’t make that familiar crack sound when I bend it the right way. God it’s not mine yet! Please help it to feel like more than mine when the time is right. God, let this new Bible mark a new chapter of my life.
The chapter where I completely sold my life to you.
Where I am now a woman, a woman who forever is yours. God, I truly believe that this new Bible will be the one that I read from to my children one day. This bible is new, the same as my life. It’s the newness that you have put inside of me. That when I tell people where I got it from, not only will I be able to tell this amazing story but also that it was the marker of when I knew that I would be forever yours.
God, I love you with all of my heart. Thank you for buying me with a price. Just as you gave up our precious and beloved Son to save others, I give up my bible, to save the rest of your children.
Amen
