My Daddy's Bible

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was peruse through my dad's Bible.  It was very well read and marked all over.

There was hardly a page without a pen mark.

I remember wanting so badly to write in my Bible the same way. To love Jesus the way he did. To find a reason to put exclamation marks after things! I wanted to love God like my daddy did.

As a child I had no reasoning to even begin to understand the things my dad had walked through as an adult. The passing of his father, the divorce between him and my mom, and countless other adult happenings that I'm sure I still don't know many of.

It never occurred to me that we often have to walk through the hard times with Jesus to begin to really love Him.

It's easy to love and praise God when things are going well. It's a lot harder to love and praise Him when things didn't turn out at all the way we planned. But it's through those times when we really fall in love with him. When we begin to understand who He is and the sacrifice He made for us.

I think I thought my pink Precious Moments Bible would easily be filled with all the love of my dad's Bible without any of the pain and questioning. I'm sure He knew as a father that my love for Christ would be one that would grow over time; that it would be a love that would endure endless questions and pain.

As I pray over my children every night, my prayer is not for them to never suffer or for their lives to be easy. All I want is for them to love Jesus Christ. I don't care what they grow up to do. I care that they grow up knowing and loving the God who created them and gave the ultimate sacrifice for them.

I don't know if my daddy ever knew that I would steal away precious time turning the thin pages of his Bible. I doubt he knew the impact it would have on me.

The love and faith I read in his words written right back to Christ through the margins of the New Testament taught me a lot about the grace of Jesus. My dad is nowhere near perfect. We are all sinners attempting to get it right. He knows that the one who made Him loves him unconditionally, no matter what, and I learned so much of that through the pen marks on the thin pages of his Bible.

It's one of my favorite memories. My daddy's Bible. The thought of his, makes me want to read mine until the pages fall right out.

Day 10 of a year of writing...