A Cherished Old Friend



My cherished old friend

 The other morning during my devotions, I was reading in my nice large-letter edition study Bible.  I requested this Bible about nine years ago when I really started noticing that the lettering in my regular Bible was "shrinking."  So, my husband gave me a lovely large lettered...but still not large enough..study Bible for Christmas that year.

And it's great.  Except for one thing. The pages look so bare. I don't mean that there isn't any print on them.  It's just that the margins are clean and there's very little underlining to be found.  And there's a reason for that.

I bought a Bible on April 23, 1980.  It has no concordance or study notes.  Just a few maps in the back.  But throughout those sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments my spiritual journey for the last 30 years is recorded in the margins of those pages. Dates, underlines, and notes chronicle the struggles, the joys, the griefs and the triumphs that God was walked me through.  It is a witness to my journey as a Christ follower.

As I read the dates next to a particular Psalm, I can remember the pain that I was experiencing at the time and the comfort that those words brought.  When I skim the underlinings in my favorite book of Philippians I once again find the joy and strength that prompted me to underline those passages in the first place.

My old Bible is better than any leather bond journal that I could ever write. Here, mingled on the slightly yellowed pages are my words and God's Word. This well-worn book is a memorial to how these living Words have intersected and changed my life.  It is quite simply, a cherished old Friend.