I’ve received many gifts in my life, some things I loved, some things not so much (rude I know but it’s true and you feel the same about some of the gifts you have received over the years, I am just willing to say it.) God and my parents gave me the gift of physical life but I just recently received a new life gift from someone. There is a person in my bible study group who noticed I had a small bible one night. I actually have at least 7 bibles, 4 versions I’m currently reading out of (NIV & the Message – 2 are small travel bibles, 2 larger study bibles) and many more at home to chose from if I change my mind. But this person noticed my small bible with TINY reading (I can hardly even read it myself anymore) and said to me “Well that thing won’t get you anywhere, you can’t even read it” and showed me their bible, a large print study bible with an actual compass attached to the nice cover it was in. They said “this one will show you the way” handing me the Word of God and showing me the compass.
I said that it was a nice bible, cute idea with the compass saying “this will show you the way” and they handed me the bible, in the cover with the compass and said to take it. I told them I couldn’t take THEIR bible, I had my own that was perfectly fine and didn’t want to take THEIR gift of life. They were relentless and when I left bible study that night, I had a new bible in my hands. A bible that was given to me out of love, a bible that has someone elses name engraved on the front cover, a bible that has bent and torn pages from being read and showing them the way. They gave me THEIR personal gift of life.
I can’t think of a gift more meaningful than that. It wasn’t planned in advance, they didn’t go out and buy me something for a special day, it wasn’t a birthday gift, it was a gift of sacrafice they gave me out of love. Talk about giving someone in need the shirt off your back….
I have a friend who longs for her moms bible, it’s been re-bound countless times, duct taped together, highlighted, underlined and has her own personal notes everywhere throughout. She WANTS her moms bible, she knows that bible holds her moms heart and it would be the ultimate gift of life to have her moms ‘heart’ when someday in the future her mom might not be around to share it with her herself.
I dream of someday passing my bible onto my child, hopefully I will be the kind of mother, like my friends, whose heart is in her bible, visible to anyone’s eye and I can leave that as a gift to my child when I’m not around to share my heart with them anymore in person.