My first Bible was a big, bulky, burgundy one that said "Holy Bible" on the front and was about three inches thick. Then there was this new trend in the Christian community of having your name printed on the lower right corner of the front cover of your Bible. So, my parents bought me a sleeker, thinner burgundy Bible with shinier pages and one of those cool ribbon book marks, and they had my name put on it.
Then it came time for High School. Ever since the fifth grade, I wanted to be home schooled. I hated public school: it didn't challenge me, both my peers and my teachers were dumb half the time, but most of all the rebellion that I saw in my older brother's life I contributed to the negative influences of public school. All through Jr. High, my biggest fear was that I wouldn't be strong enough, that public school would get to me, and I'd fall in my faith like him. But by the time High School came around, it was clear to my parents and I that home school wasn't in God's plan for me. After I finished crying over it, I finally decided that if it was God's plan for me to go to public school, then maybe He wouldn't let me slip like my older brother had. But before school started, I got a new Bible. This one was a small blue one that I got specifically to fit in my purse so that I could have it with me at school.
I can't remember if it was my senior or junior year, but I was at a football game marching the half time show when it started to rain. By the time we made it back up to the stands, it was too late. Everything in my purse, my Bible included, had been soaked. So I got a new Bible, about the same size but this one was brown and green and had cool designs on it.
One of the most commonly overlooked beauties in this world is a well-used Bible-- one with a worn spine, the sparkly edges worn off the pages, and rainbows of underlines, highlights, and notes in the margins on many pages. I was looking for something in my Bible today and was surprised to find that it hadn't been underlined yet. Then I flipped through the rest of my Bible and was a little disappointed that it wasn't nearly as colorful inside as I thought it should be. But I found a few things, a couple of verses that I had underlined that had special meaning to me and a few notes that had stories behind why I had written them there. It got me to thinking, so I ran downstairs and pulled out my old blue Bible. It had been a well-worn Bible before the rain at that football game brought it to an early retirement, and half of the notes and underlinings had bled all over multiple pages, but the scripture was still legible and I could make out the majority of my markings.
When I used that blue Bible, I was in a very special place in my relationship with God. It was incredibly intimate, I trusted Him with more than I do now. He was all I had back then, and I liked it that way. Nothing could come between us. I was on fire, I was passionately in love with my Lord and Savior, and every new thing He told me was worthy of a little new color in my Bible.
Things have changed since then. I've struggled with things I never thought I'd struggle with before. I've found myself wasting so much time groping cluelessly in dark corners when all I really needed to do was turn back around to find the open arms of my Abba Father. I've watched people falter in ways I've never thought possible for them, I've come against brick walls erected by the enemy and fortified by the free will that sometimes I wonder why in the world God gave us. And I've discovered that coming back to the intimacy that I had with God from places of such darkness is much easier said than done.
But I am coming back. It's a slow process, and it isn't a fun process. It's a fight, it's a struggle, it's a journey over rough terrain, and while I'm at least traveling in the right direction now I still keep stumbling, scraping my knees, and having to get up again to press on. But I'll be stronger for it in the end, and through it all I truly have learned things about my Creator that I didn't know before. And some day, I'll get back to the intimacy that I miss so much.
So I'm going to go to church tomorrow, and I think I'll bring that poor little rain-smeared blue Bible with me.
