I’ve been living life with “little Bible,” as I call it, for so long, I forget I even have a big one. Several big ones.

“Big pink Bible” definitely has something “little Bible” lacks: memorabilia. True, BPB also has lots of footnotes and a useful concordance which LB lacks, but the best thing about it is that it’s shoved full of some valuable memories. The leather cover is marked with about 50 tiny holes because my kitty once used it as a scratching post. The zipper pocket in the cover still contains my meticulous notes from a study on James that Doug A. did one summer–I’m not sure which because I wrote only the month and day, not the year, on the dated pages. Probably 6 years ago.

Inside the front cover are a note in my mother’s handwriting with Roberta Cuthrell’s phone number on it, a carefully written 4X5 note displaying Matthew 25:40 (The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”), and a Bible study based on a Sermon Doug gave on February 24, 2002.

The cover page contains a tiny sticker with a dove on it, a large sticker about being a Christian I was given at CIY 1996, and the notation “Romans 1:16″ (which I’m pretty sure is the first step on the “Roman Road”). The first page notes I was given BPB for Christmas, 1995 by my Mom and Dad, and there’s a family tree that Mom even filled in. Nathan, include Josephine and Leonard in the family name options.

There are 3X5 cards sprinkled throughout the volume, including notes from friends I haven’t spoken to in years.

Then again, there’s always Third Grade Promotion Red Bible. I carried this around with me at school every day of my senior year. Appropriately, there is a blue handout on the dewey decimal system shoved in the front cover. I probably picked that up at Hope, though. TGPRB used to be crammed full of papers. I pared them down many years ago, but there are still prayer requests written in a Bible study with Kerinda Miller and a piece of a theology homework assignment with my maiden name on it. On the inside of the back cover is a drawing of an octopus with three hearts, done by the blogger’s artist husband, probably during a boring sermon. The edges of the pages are warped from being dropped on a rainy day at Warren High, the back cover and spine are ripped clean off, and there’s a tiny sticker of a green football on the back.

Finally, there’s Old Precious Moments Bible. OPMB tells me, in my Grandmother’s handwriting, that I was given the volume for Christmas 1986. Included are a xeroxed lesson on sexual purity and a note from a D-group with Kathryn Flynn.

I sometimes think I’ve used my Bibles as much like a museum of my religious history as actual study tools. Little Bible is pocket sized and has been doing much of the heavy work for years, while the other volumes have been quietly memorializing my past. Not that the past is quiet–it’s an active and vital part of the Christian I am today, and I think it likely I may spend some time tracing the themes and threads of that story on this blog. But as I look over these time capsules, and as I read the blogs of younger friends still struggling in their high school and college years, I’m struck by just how much has changed, thank God. But I’m also struck by things I’ve lost, some of which I may wish to reclaim, others which are gone forever. Life and faith are probably meant to have that mixture–relief, gratitude, yearning, and bittersweetness. Mine do, anyway.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.