Pages; crisp and new. Unread and unseen. A new bible lay freshly unwrapped. The beholder, the girl, holds her new bible for the first time, knows not the power, the might, the glory, in which she holds loosely in the palm of her hands.
She opens it to read. She reads the stories, but does she know it's real?
Her heart wonders if what her eyes are seeing are simply a fairytale, or the greatest truths her eyes will ever see.
She reads. And she reads.
She begins to see Gods hands in the many workings of the Lord. Noah and his ark, Moses and the Israelites, Esther faithfully coming before the throne uninvited; Job, oh yes, Job. A man of character. A man whom the Lord allowed Satan to seek to devour, yet in midst of the greatest heartache that could ever be held, Job stayed faithful. He persevered.
And then there were the Psalms, full of hymns and prayers used to praise the King.
The girl sees sin at its darkest. But she sees the Lord use the most evil of men to bring forth the greatest glory of all; Jesus.
As she reads, the pages start to get wrinkled. She's realizing she is falling in love with Jesus.
She feels sick the first time she spills her morning coffee on those crisp white pages. After the third and forth time, she realizes that unfortunately, spilling coffee is just gonna be one of those mistakes she will always make ;)
As her bible wrinkles, her heart grows stronger. As the binding pulls away, her life pulls even tighter. As she reads of Jesus' life, her excitement and desire to fall into a deep love with Jesus magnifies into something she can hardly stand to contain inside of her being.
So she goes, and she tells. She tells of His healing hand; she tells about how the power of the Lord has and continues to answer her prayers; she tells of His love for the sinner. She cannot and will not keep this to herself.
See, in her hand she holds a book; a book packed full of glories; packed full of truth.
She wants you to know what Jesus has done in her life. She wants you to to experience the wonder of a tattered bible, and a heart solid as the Rock.
Her love for Jesus spills over; it spills over into the hearts of her parents, her little brothers & sisters, her friends. She builds relationships built on the foundation of Christ. Little eyes watching her, she brings little children to know Jesus, which blossoms into adults who bring more children to know Jesus. She touches generations and generations. She is a woman of strength and self discipline. She is a mighty warrior for Christ because she digs deep into the word and prayer, every day.
Years gone by and she sits in her rocking chair; she's now 83 years old. She holds her precious bible, close to her heart. Her eyes can no longer see well enough to read the words on those pages. Sometimes her great-grandkids will come and read to her.
But as she rocks in that chair, she doesn't need to read the words. She already knows them. She knows them because through the many years, she read them over, and over, and over again. She cannot read her stained white papers any longer, but because of the years of pouring her heart out to Christ, tears dripping on the pages, coffee spills, laughter, glory, joy, peace, sharing His truth with loved ones...she has those pages etched into her very being.
She knows Jesus, and she wants to tell the world; one tattered page at a time.
