When do two become one?

Scripture tells us that when a man and woman marry they are no longer two people but one.

 ...‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-8

Marriage between a man and a woman clearly creates a unity that even the unregenerate can, for the most part, see a difference between it and any other unity on earth. Few people deny there is a relationship between a husband and a wife that goes beyond that of any other relationship on earth. 

It takes a regenerate person to understand the true depths of that unity but most people can see and acknowledge there is something more to marriage than what is in any other relationship. Or so I like to think. As I write this I am questioning myself on just how true that statement is. Today people, as a whole, seem to be embracing all manner of almost-marriages and giving them the same respect that should be reserved for Biblical marriage, or marriage between one man and one woman. 

I would be the first person to say that a marriage certificate does not create a marriage. My husband and I married each other before the Lord several months before we married before the law. We both had family that did not consider us to be married until we said those vows before someone to make them legal. There was a distinction in the eyes of our family members that said we weren't married until we had a piece of paper issued by the state giving us the legal status of marriage. 

The family members that were quick to let us know that our commitment to each other, one made before the Lord, did not count as marriage are the same people that have no issues whatsoever with an unmarried couple living together. One of those relatives had even told me not to bother getting married, to just live together, and that was quite a while before I met my husband. Then when I married my husband without legal status that same relative was one of the first ones to say we weren't truly married. 

I can't help wondering what it mattered to this person. If they did not hold the status of marriage as super important (and they don't, I could give several examples to prove that) then why even bother weighing in on my and my husband's decision on how we married? 

But to get back on topic, there are some that say my husband and I weren't married until that legal paper was in our hands, a paper we did not have for several months after we were married before the Lord. In those months we lived together as man and wife, made choices together, bought things together, conceived a child together...all things married couples do and yet there are some that would say we were not married during those months. 

Those same people don't normally bat an eye at people living together without any intent of marrying. It's normal and accepted in our society. At least it is in America. I know someone that used to work in an Arabic country and that person saw the difference in that country and ours. Apparently the majority of people in prison in that country are unmarried mothers and they are in prison because they are unmarried mothers. 

What marks the line between a couple living together without benefit of marriage and a couple living together in marriage? Strictly from a human standpoint? Or a Biblical one? Where is the line that defines marriage verses adultery? I have two close relatives that had babies while living with men they did not even come close to claiming as their husbands. One of those relatives has married the daddy of her children, the other has not. Where is the line between married and not married? When do the two become one? 

I'm not asking that Scripturally but from a human, earthly, standpoint. Why were my husband and I condemned before men for marrying without a legal status of marriage while those that choose to simply live together, living in sin with no intent of marriage, or with a vague 'we'll get married someday' plan, are treated the same as if they were married. 

I don't support the whole homosexual marriage thing but plenty of people that are either homosexuals or those that support the homosexual lifestyle can clearly see there is something different in the marital relationship. They saw it so well that being accepted in society as a couple, even couples with legal rights, wasn't/isn't good enough, they want the same legal and social rights and acceptances as man/woman marriages are given.

So marriage creates a line that takes two people from who and what they were before marriage and pushes them to the other side of that line where they are something different as a married couple. 

There are states that are what is called community property laws, meaning what one spouse owns, so does the other. They are treated as one when it comes to legal things in those states. But that is only one side, a legal side, to some of what happens in marriage. What of all the other, little and not so little things that move two people from being separate to being one person in marriage?

My husband are married. We are one before our Lord yet we are still two separate people. My husband likes things I do not like. I like things he does not like. I go places he does not go, he goes places I do not go. We both live our own lives within our marriage and yet the very fact that we are married creates almost an entirely whole world that the two of us live within even as we live our own lives. That might be a convoluted way of saying it but it's true. It's kind of like the earth rotates on it's own axis while circling the sun. A married couple has an entire life that is a shared, we are one, life but that oneness happens in the midst of each person living out their own life. 

I was recently talking with a friend, technically, I was writing a letter to a friend because that is how we do the majority of our communicating, and I was telling this friend of my life back when I met my husband. I knew this friend for several years before my husband and I met, so this person saw the changes in my life as they were made but I was sharing some of my own thoughts and memories. In that letter, I told my friend how in the early days and months of my marriage I had to learn how to be a wife. It was new to me and there were many other things going on in my life and in my husband's life but in the midst of all of that we were learning to me a married couple too. 

I remember those days. I remember the experiences that took my husband and I from two people and pushed us into one. Scripture says we became one when we married, that is the line that makes two people into one, but there are earthly experiences that strengthen and deepen that marital bond. We learned to depend on each other, trust each other, work together, and generally how to mesh our two lives into one. 

There are other relationships though that are not defined by Scripture as creating one person from two. I tend to base my understandings of life off Scripture but I'm only human and occasionally something comes along that makes me wonder just how something can be or it makes me question my understanding of how something is. 

Science has 'proven' that a mother and her newborn are one person. I read an article on it several years ago and there is a connection in the mother and newborn that causes their bodies to work together, often reacting to each other as if they are one person. The mothers chest can sense the infants temperature and will regulate to keep the baby at the right temperature. A baby kept next to or on top of mom will change it's breathing and heart rate to match the mothers. 

There are plenty of things that go wrong with that connection. Even something as seemingly minor as formula feeding can and does have long reaching effects on the mother-child bond. My husband remarked many times on how breastfeeding strengthens the bond between mother and baby. His observations are correct. There is something in the nursing relationship that is different than in any other relationship. They say a mother is much more patient with her 'nursling' than she is even with the same child once that child is weaned. 

From an earthly standpoint, it would seem that a mother and child are one person, at least for a time. And that's just taking the first year of life into account, what of the nine months before birth, when the baby literally is a part of the mothers body?

Scripture does not tell us that mother and child are one. There are no verses that speak of the mother being one with her baby. That distinction is given only to man and woman in marriage. Yet, the Lord has put something into the mother and baby that make them one, so much so that they share the mother's body for nine months and once that precious time ends there are physical and physiological things in the mother and baby's interactions that make them react to each other as if they are still one person. Their bodies recognize each other and interact and respond accordingly. Just as my body will work to warm up my foot if it grows cold, my body also warms my baby if it grows cold. It's a miraculous thing to experience and yet the Lord does not say mother and baby are one.

Just this morning I read an article about a set of conjoined twins that have one body but two heads. This set of twins appears just from looking at them to be one person with two heads. They are supposedly a medical anomaly. They have two names and, according to the article, do things like buying two movie tickets, getting two separate college degrees, but also travel on a single airline ticket. 

I do not know the logistics of living as these two women do and I do not know what it would be like to raise children with this particular condition. I do know that my thoughts as I read the article, and in times past when I have seen things about this same set of twins, is that if they were mine I would raise them as one child. From what I can gather they have been treated as separate people. 

Today I found myself thinking that I'm not so sure I would have wanted them even having two names and two separate birth certificates. These were my thoughts as I read the article and I do not know what I actually want or do if I were faced with a child or children with that condition. I just know that today, and in times past, when I read of these two girls I could not help thinking that because they cannot be separated, they are literally one person with two heads. Logically, I understand that there are many things that must be consider, only one of which is what the law requires in such cases. 

If the law says a set of conjoined twins must be issued two birth certificates than obviously there is no getting around that even if the parents prefer only one birth certificate. There are also things like the fact that each head on this set of twins has her own thoughts and feelings. Therefore, there would be times when one side would be misbehaving while the other side was not. Logistics in such a case could get mighty confusing very quickly. 

And still, my thoughts are that this set of twins, no matter their ability to think and reason, must live life as one person. They can be seen one of two ways...two people that share one body, or one person that has two heads. This set seems to be seen as two people, one body, and maybe that is best but my thoughts lead me to think of the one person aspect. There is no separating one of these girls from the other. They are forced to live one life whether they want to or not. They cannot even do basic personal care without the other.

 It seems to me that they are one person but Scripture does not cover situations like this. There is no discussion of conjoined twins at all. Does the Lord see them as two people or as one? We cannot know. The article I read said they have two souls but we really cannot know that either. We do not know the line where the Lord takes one soul and makes it two. People have one soul. One person, one soul. Conjoined twins, though, are not one person even though they may not be fully two people either. That is one of those cases where I am happy to leave it up to the Lord. But even though I am happy to do so, I still can't help wondering where that line is...are they one person or two? Does the fact that the two must live life conjoined make them one person?

Scripture only defines the turning of two people into one where marriage between one man and one woman are concerned. All the other scenarios are things we can only wonder at but never really know or understand just where the line is drawn. 

I remember

This week brought the three year mark of the loss of our unborn child. I still vividly remember the days that crawled by as our little one was living out it's last hours on earth. Those hours were passed in the well regulated comfort of my womb and I take comfort in knowing that although our baby's life was short, it was well loved and much wanted.

I can't say I'm writing this out of any lofty goal. I have no point to make. No Scripture to study. I simply want to remember the child that has forever marked my heart.

The anniversary day of our child's passing came and went with no fanfare, no acknowledgement of what the day was. Life in our house went on as usual. I was busy, my husband was busy. We did not celebrate the life of our child this year, nor did we mourn the loss of it. The day simply came and went.

I found myself regretting that but by then it was one day too late to change it. And now I find myself kind of glad the day passed the way it did. Our little one lives in my heart every single day, as do the other babies we lost. I think of him/her often. March 19 is a special day because it belongs to the baby that I never got to hold except in death.

I still recall in vivid detail holding that tiny baby in my hand. I can still see the way it looked. I can feel the sticky, weightlessness of it. And most importantly, I recall the horrible heartache that came from knowing my child had lived all the days it was to have on this earth.

I still wonder what it might have looked like. Yes, I know, Scripturally, it looked like what the Lord intended it too because He did not give it enough time on earth to grow hair or have an eye color. But my very human, mother's heart, still wonders. Would it have had my husband's hair? Would it have gotten my skin tone? Would it have my husbands ears and nose? My toes? Curls or straight hair? Long lashes or short?

My baby would have turned two in November. By now it would have been a walking, running, chattering toddler. Filling my days with laughter and love and keeping me on my toes.

Instead it lives only in my heart and memory...and in the hearts and memories of those who loved it. I'd still give almost anything for the chance to hold that baby just one time. Still ache at the loss of the child I never got to know. Still sometimes cry tears of love for the baby that never snuggled in my arms, smiled at me, or held my finger. So many things we never shared. So much loss in the death of my unborn baby.

And so I write this, not to study Scripture, not to learn or explain, but to remember.

I remember my joy and excitement at finding out that little baby lived inside me. I recall discovering we were too have another child so early in the morning that after sharing the wonderful news with my husband I went back to bed but I was too excited to sleep. Thoughts of a new baby filled my mind and love swelled my heart. Just that quickly, my life was changed forever. The knowledge that we were expecting was all it took for me to love deeply and to anticipate the life the Lord had given us.

And anticipate it I did.

I bought clothes and blankets. We discussed names. I even started crocheting a little blanket. With every stitch I made, I thought of the baby I would one day wrap within it. I prayed for the child I carried. I dreamed. I...enjoyed the knowledge of that child living within me.

I sat with my hand cradling my still flat stomach. I remarried my husband with the knowledge that our child was growing within me. I deliberately did not wear shoes during the ceremony so that I could get married barefoot and pregnant. It was my own little secret. My husband even asked me if I was going to put shoes on for our wedding and I just told him no. I did not explain my reasons for not wearing shoes. But it made me happy to be getting married while barefoot and pregnant.

Oddly enough, that had been a dream of mine, to get married while barefoot and pregnant. I had long since given up that dream, knowing that I would have to be married before I would be pregnant but then the Lord worked things out so that I could realize that dream. I was married before I got pregnant. And then I got married again while pregnant.

And I shared that dream with the tiny baby that made it possible.

Oh, and I shared it with my husband too.:p It was a wonderful day. A happy day. And it took place just one short week before it all came crashing to an end.

I went through my days blissfully unaware of what was to come, not suspecting for a moment that our child was in the process of living out its final days on earth.

I shared the joy of our soon to be little one with people that did not know. Agreed to let friends hold a baby shower for me, with tentative plans in place for several months away. I shopped for tiny little clothes.

I loved that little baby with everything in me.

Then came the warning signs of loss. Warning signs that were followed all too quickly by total loss. And just like that...

It was over.

I held a super tiny baby in the palm of my hand and I cried like I had never cried before. I hurt. I ached. I curled up in a ball, cradling my no longer living baby, and I cried and cried. I held that baby until it wasn't feasible to do so anymore and then I refused to wash the signs of its life and loss off my hands. It was grief, I know that now, but at the time it was a connection to the child I no longer carried within me. And I just couldn't give up that final connection.

I hadn't been ready for the abrupt ending of the life that had lived so very briefly in my womb. For all too short a time I had been not I, but we. Pregnancy made me not one person but two people in one. That baby lived inside of me, as part of me.

Normally, that process lasts nine months and by the time it comes to an end, the mama is so uncomfortable and hormones have kicked in to prepare her mind and body to give up the condition of being two in one. I only had seven short weeks. And I had almost no warning it was ending. And once it was over there was no baby to marvel over, no tiny little one to fill my heart and hours. There was only loss. So much loss and heartache.

Now, I remember that baby with a smile. Most of the time anyway. The pain is still there, so is the loss, but there is also joy in just knowing I was given the chance to know and love that tiny little soul. And love it I did. I do.

I still have that partially made blanket. I came across it just the other day as I was doing a deep cleaning and purging of my home. I did the same thing I have done every time I see it since the day I lost our child...I thought 'Oh, Baby' (except our baby has a name, a name I am choosing to keep out of this post) and I gently caressed that partially made blanket. I told myself I should part with it but instead of listening, I folded it up and packed it away again. It is a reminder of the child I do not have.

I also do not have pictures, hand or foot prints, a beloved teddy bear, or a grave to visit. I have a partially made blanket, a few little things bought for a child that never was and a little secret I will not divulge, and that's all that's left of what my mother's heart says 'should have been'.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

He gave us that little soul and then He took it away again. I still ache for the loss of the baby I never got to keep. I am crying as I write this. But I smile at the memory of the gift of sharing in our baby's all too short life. I am grateful the Lord allowed us the few short weeks we had. I would love to have had more. How my arms ache to hold the toddler that baby should be by now. There is emptiness in my home where toys and clothes should be. There is no one snuggled next to me where the little one should rest as I read a story. I have no silky hair to brush. No teeth to clean. No messes to pick up. No toddler to chase after and treasure. Instead, I treasure memories and a few small things that are all I have left of the child I was blessed to have for an all too brief span of time.

And today...

I remember.

Bible Studies at My House

The studying of Scripture is an interesting thing at my house as I am sure it is in many homes. Growing up in and out of 'church' buildings and their unending descriptions of what a 'Christian' should be doing, I learned the way to study the Scriptures is through the teachings of another, be it the preacher, a 'teacher', or a devotional. It appeared that some sort of guide was needed for Scripture studying.

It wasn't until I met someone that made me feel...well, less than Christian...for not having read the Bible all the way through that I actually spent a good deal of time reading, not studying, the Scriptures. It was a challenge. My goal was to be able to say I had read the Bible all the way through. I accomplished that goal. 

But the prize was so much more than the self-inflated ability to bragging rights on saying I had read the entire Bible. You see, it was somewhere in all that time, at least an hour a day, that I spent soaking in Scripture, that I began to see more to Scripture than had been watered down and poured into me through all my years in 'Church'. At least I think that might have been when I began to see Scripture through clearer eyes. I really don't know. It was such a  gradual thing and by that point I was already seeking, yearning, aching for more of Christ. I just didn't know where to go to get what my soul was crying out for.

It was quite a while after that self inflicted challenge with such a huge prize...the prize of Scripture...that I met my husband. I still did not fully understand the Scriptural situation I was in. I had barely scratched the surface of seeing real Scripture, Scripture that wasn't twisted and distorted by 'church' and all their so-called teachers, to be able to read Scripture without the tainting that had poisoned the Word. 

To put it mildly...I was being choked but was fighting my way free of the hands that were keeping me from the Truth. Along came my husband and with one simple question...

I could see.

I could understand.

He asked me to read Ephesians one and tell him what I saw in it. And I did. But what I saw in that chapter threw me so much that I had to look it up in several different verses, read commentary on it. To put it simply I thought I was seeing things that were not there.

With great trepidation, I told my soon to be husband what I saw in that chapter. I was sure he was going to tell me I was seeing things that were not there or think I was crazy. I figured he would laugh at me. But worst of all I feared he would never speak to me again.

You see, what I saw in that chapter was so foreign to me that I had never heard anyone say such a thing. I had never heard the word predestined in conjunction with Scripture, never heard anyone speak of the elect. 

It had only been a few days since I had met the man that would be my husband and here I was seeing something so shocking in Scripture that I was certain I was going to run him off. There was no choice though, he had asked me to tell him what I had seen and I couldn't lie to him. So I told him. I even gave him all the info I found in my research.

Much to my surprise, I did not run him off. Quite the opposite, I married him about five weeks later. It turned out my husband didn't think I was crazy and he didn't laugh at me. Everyone else did, but not him. He was thrilled to 'finally' find me, a reformed Christian woman. 

Oh, I still had a long way to go. Was still what my husband called a nominal Christian at that point but I was seeing what I had never seen, understanding what I had never understood. That was a long time ago and I'm no longer the nominal Christian my husband once called me. 

Our Bible studies are so much different than what I was taught a 'bible study' should look like. Gone are the devotionals, gone are the 'preachers and teachers'. In their place we use Scripture. We sometimes reference people like Charles Spurgeon but we never use his writings to lead our Scripture studies. We use Scripture.

My husband is fond of using 1 John 2:27

But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

And it's so very true. If a person is regenerate they can study and learn from the Scriptures themselves. 

Which brings me back to the point I was trying to make, Scripture studies at my house look nothing like the 'Bible studies' I was taught we should have according to the 'churches'. I don't even use a notebook and pen, much less a devotional, when I study. I do use a pen though. And I take notes in my Bible. But I only do that sometimes. 

Other times I don't even use a Bible. That may be shocking to some but it's a normal everyday thing at my house. My husband and I do Bible study without a Bible in sight. We talk of life and living in the same conversations that we speak of Scripture, our Lord, and eternity. We take walks together and we speak of our Lord. We sit in our yard and discuss world happenings and compare them to Scripture.

Last night I was talking with a relative and they told me how lucky I was to have a husband that would talk about the Bible with me. This relative also told me they guessed I probably fell in love with my husband because of that. I admitted that that was exactly what made me fall in love with him and it is what made him fall in love with me. 

The Lord is the attraction we 'found' in each other and He is the glue that holds us together. 

And that glue binds us so much that our Bible studies may have us with a Bible in hand, reading Scripture and conversing or it may have one or the other of us sharing something we encountered or thought on that day.

My husband shared his thoughts with me on people assuming a person is in heaven just because they died and I took what he shared and turned it into a blog post. I wrote it specifically for my husband. 

As I have tried to write this post, I have been interrupted so many times with things of a Spiritual nature that I cannot seem to manage to pull my thoughts together on this post and get it to go where I wanted it to go. In all honesty, I no longer even recall what my original intent was. I have been inundated with Scriptural things lately, so much so that I am jumping from one conversation to another, discussing deep subjects on one topic only to be nose deep in another while still trying to finish my other conversation.

I sit here, trying to pull my thoughts together, struggling to recall my original intent in this post and I see the little devotional book that came in the mail the other day, a book I usually flip through and toss in the trash. For some reason I haven't yet thrown this one out. Mainly because I thought there might be something in it that would stretch my Scriptural studies, not because of what's in the little booklet but because something in there might send me on a search of Scripture. And yet...I cannot bring myself to even look at the content of the book. I already know it is Arminian based and I have no interest in so much as scanning the titles in it. 

But that look book is a silent reminder of what I always thought Bible studies were 'supposed' to be. And as I look at it, now a bit tattered from being pushed to and fro in the last couple of days, I am reminded of a conversation my husband and I had not too very long ago. My husband brought up how so many people sit in 'church' services with a notebook in hand, taking notes on the service, trying to write down all the important points of the sermon so they can go home and study it. Some of them actually do study those notes and others just have good intentions but very few of them get the true meaning of the verses they look up. They study and study and never come to enlightenment.

There was a conversation between some people in a Reformed group that I am in where they were discussing the understanding and conversion of nonchristians. Someone said something to the effect of 'it's a waste of time past giving them the gospel'. 

The poor people scribbling notes on a Sunday morning or struggling through Bible studies in devotionals or even happily reading pages and pages of Scripture only to never understand are really doing themselves no good. I'm not saying it's ever a waste of time to study the Scriptures but if they study them with the wrong mindset...what do they gain?

I recently had a conversation with someone that would be considered lost by most people professing any kind of belief in Christ. This person believed in Jesus but their Jesus was of their own making. This person had read at least some of the Bible but presumably picked and chose which parts of it they thought were true and discarded the parts they believed to be "lies''. 

According to this person one of the biggest lies in Scripture is the place of women. My understanding from that conversation was this person was probably some kind of feminist and therefore took offense at verses like Ephesians 5:22-24. I was told that those verses were part of a conspiracy theory by the men that decided what did and did not go into the Bible. 

From what I gathered this person had done in depth 'Bible' studies but those studies had done no good. They may have taken lots of notes, use commentaries, or devotionals but they approached Scripture through the mindset of their belief and came away with such mixed up understandings and beliefs that they may as well have spent their time doing anything other than 'Bible' study. 

This person may have had beliefs that all but defied any definition of Christianity but they weren't that far off from most people that 'study' the Bible. As I talked with this person I found myself thinking I am secure in my belief, I believe that my understanding, the Reformed, or Scripture only, view is the correct one and yet this person was just as certain they were right. I have a friend whose beliefs differ from mine in many areas. This friend is as certain they are correct as I am. 

We each approach Bible studies through our understanding of Scripture and our own beliefs. In that conversation I had with this person they accused me of being 'indoctrinated', something my sister got a good laugh out of. But the thing is...this person truly seemed to believe that. They were certain that their belief was the right one and did not seem happy until they thought they had brought me around to their way of thinking. 

I do not, for a single second, agree with their beliefs but there came a time to quit tossing my pearls before swine and bow out as best I could. This person appeared to be happy when that happened and I assume they are now convinced they taught me something, which they may have but I didn't learn to follow their beliefs. 

But how different was this person than the evangelist, the preacher, the Bible teacher, or your best friend or relative that try to bring a person around to their belief system? 

I have a relative that is not Christian by any stretch of the definition. This relative does not believe in pushing their belief on anyone, they believe in sharing only if asked. Scripture tells us we are give the gospel so that is not an option for a believer but...we are not told to keep pushing the gospel. We are actually shown just the opposite, to share it once and move on. 

But somewhere in there...somewhere in the understanding of sharing the gospel...many people got the idea of 'teaching' Scripture. I did a search for Christian devotionals at a popular online store and got in excess of 20 pages of choices. A search for women's Christian devotionals also has over 20 pages. I can't even begin to imagine just how many 'Christian' devotionals there are out there. 

They make them for women, for men, for kids, for boys, for girls, for married couples...I'm guessing they make them for animal lovers, for travelers, for...whatever it is that a person might be, there's probably a devotional just for that. Years ago I had a devotional for simplifying ones life. It used stories that were supposedly from the Amish. My husband and I were given one for couples. 

Why is it that all these so-called 'Christians' need so many people to 'teach' them the Scriptures? 

I know, I understand...I get it...that if a person isn't born again than they cannot see the Truth, they will be blinded to what the Scriptures say but even if they can't get the real Truth are they so incapable of understanding the Scriptures in whatever form they think the Scriptures point? 

I was once just such a person. I used to read devotionals instead of my Bible. It was much easier to get 'Gods word' in bite size pieces. And as an added bonus they came with stories. Those stories were much more interesting than plain Scripture. 

Thankfully the Lord opened my eyes and removed the blinders. Not only do I no longer need all those devotionals but I find them not the least bit appealing. I do enjoy reading things by people like Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, the Puritans, and other reformed Christians. I enjoy them but I do not have to have them.

That's not to say that there aren't things in Scripture I don't understand or that I don't appreciate another's insights on. I often question my husband or enjoy hearing his understanding of things. I have even deliberately not done my own research or cross checking just so that I could get him involved in my studies of Scripture but I am not dependent on him or others to be able to study and learn from Scripture. 

As a result my Bible studies are much more enjoyable and fun. I can well remember doing Bible studies where I struggled to understand the point the teacher was trying to make. There were many times when I did not see the connection to something being taught with the text being used. A couple of years ago I had a long discussion with a friend because she saw something in a book of Scripture that I could not see. She told me to read between the black and white of Scripture. The other day the person I found myself talking to told me to stop 'worshiping a book' (meaning the Bible) and look at what 'Jesus' was trying to write on my heart. That was sort of what my friend told me so long ago too only for different beliefs.

Am I wrong in what I see in Scripture? Maybe. If I am there are others that are just as wrong. I, for one, am getting my understanding straight from Scripture and not from a human teacher and it is the best way of doing Bible studies that I have ever used.

It makes for some wonderful discussions and Bible studies at my house, is the cause and culprit for much learning. Are we doing it wrong as some have pointed out? Not according to Scripture. It's a funny thing but Scripture never says we need a daily devotional. We are instructed to study the Scriptures. And I am content to do all my Bible Studies with Scripture as my teacher.

My Bible, My Friend

Bibles are wonderful, amazing things. They should be shared. They should be studied. They should be enjoyed. I have seen it said that a person can make an idol of the Bible. I suppose it's true. 

No, I know it is. 

We humans can make idols of anything. Sometimes it's hard for us to even see when we are doing it. There are earthly things that catch our attention and even the elect can get sucked into those things more than we should.

I have a friend that says we need Christian accountability, and we do. There are good things to be had in being accountable before another Christian but all too often those Christians will hold us accountable through their human eyes and not just to Scripture. I tell my friend that my accountability is before Christ. I also tell her that it is before my husband, who I truly believe to be one of the elect. But my husband tells me that it is Christ to whom I am accountable. 

Still, I want him to tell me if he sees that I am growing too involved with the things of this world and not involved enough with the things of Christ. I want him to point out when I fail. 

But I also have something else that points out my failures. It slices straight to my heart and chastises my thoughts. It effects my feelings and changes my moods and desires. It is my Bible. 

I have lots of Bibles. Probably too many Bibles. I have study Bibles and reading Bibles. I have antique Bibles and reprinted Bibles. I have...

Well, you get the idea. I really do have too many Bibles. My sister once asked me why I had so many. She informed me that I can only read one at a time. She is right. And she is wrong. When I do an in depth Bible study sometimes I use four or more Bibles and the internet. 

I also happen to just enjoy Bibles. I like the smell of them. The feel of them. I like to compare the pages and the different versions. I like to see other people's notes in Bibles I find in thrift stores and I like to just...enjoy Bibles.

But I have this one Bible....and it's that Bible I wish to introduce you to today. It is the main Bible I use. I bought it because I saw a review on it and it seemed like just what I was looking for in a Bible...and it was. Before that my favored Bible was a paperback New Testament that was falling apart. It was full of notes and had been taped together so many times that tape was about the only thing holding it together. I still have that New Testament and it still makes me smile to see it but I  no longer use it. 

Now I use its replacement.

A Bible is special, should always be special, because it is...the Lords Word. But this Bible is special in a different kind of way. It's special for holding the Lord's words but it's also special to me. 

I use this Bible to study, use it in lessons, use it for blog posts, use it to look up things, to ponder. I use it to read to my husband. It is my Bible.

I remember reading something some time back, I don't know what it was or what it was about, but I remember thinking at the time that we should always be willing to give our Bible away should we encounter someone that needs it worse than we do. That thought still lingers. But I can't honestly say I would give this Bible away. I would if I really had to, if there were no other option, but I would look for any other option first. I would give away most of my other Bibles first, would buy someone a Bible, would...would try to find any out other than handing over my Bible to never be seen again. 

Maybe that's wrong. Maybe I shouldn't even admit that on this blog but...I'm human. Some things I am just more attached to than others. My husband says I am too attached to all things. Maybe I am. This Bible certainly has endeared itself to me.

 I own numerous Bibles. If I were to walk around my home and collect just my Bibles there would be...more than I should admit to owning. If I also added in my husbands Bibles there would be even more. 

I own too many Bibles but most of them serve a purpose. Most of them are used for Bible studies. I have different versions for comparison, I have an interlinear New Testament for looking up the original texts, I have study Bibles and Chronological Bibles. I have...too many Bibles. 

But 99.9% of the time I use only one. It is my Bible.

So are the other umpteen Bibles I own. But this one is different. This one is the one I grab when I want to do just about everything Scriptural. And much to the dismay of some, I write in my Bible. Not just little notes but whole margins full of them. I also highlight and underline. But that's not all. You see, to me my Bible is my own lifeline. It's my journey. My walk with Christ. My teacher. My instructor. My friend. 

And because it's all that and so much more, I also put handprints of the children in my life in it. I put footprints and milestones in there. I write about what those I love are doing as I read a certain passage. I usually make those entries before I start studying Scripture and it brings me joy to do so. It's also a reminder to pray for those people when I later come across a hand or footprint, or a note about them. There is a note where I wrote that we were expecting our first granddaughter, long before we knew she was to be a girl. Another note tells my heartache of when that same child was born with heart problems and spent time in the NICU. I believe there's even a written prayer or two for her within the pages of my Bible. 

I don't share that rather personal little tidbit because I feel anyone needs to know what I write, or don't write, in my Bible but because I have had discussions with people before about writing in the pages of such a holy book. It may be that my writing and notetaking is some form of disrespect for the Lord's word. I am sure there are many out there that would say it is but I don't see it that way. To me...my Bible is my friend. It's there to guide and teach me, to lead me along life's roads. There are Bibles I would not write in. I have at least one that I would never take a note in but that Bible is not my everyday using Bible. 

My everyday using Bible, the one that is almost always close at hand, the one that has traveled hundreds of miles with me, the one that I have read while walking in my yard, eating meals, and doing deep studies...that Bible. That Bible is my dear friend that walks with me, talks with me (not literally), and was bought for the purpose of studying and writing in. It is a friend that catches much of my life in Christ and I choose to put within its pages some of my life on earth. 

Last summer my husband and I spent some time away from home, not really on vacation, at least not on purpose. Medical reasons took us from our home to be close to doctors and then we found ourselves stuck there for a time. While there my husband and I shared a Bible, not that we don't normally share our Bibles, we do. What was different this time was that we shared my Bible. You know, the one that is my friend. The one that I write in. Yeah, that Bible.

At first I was just a bit uneasy. You see, handing my husband that Bible was like handing him my journal, I've done that before too, it was like giving him a window into my deepest thoughts, he already knows those. But somehow, even though I keep nothing from my husband, somehow handing him that Bible made me squirm just a bit. It made me wonder what he would think when he read the notes in the margins. What he would say when he saw that I wrote about him. What went through his mind when he read my prayers or my musings. 

He never did comment on any of that. And in time I quit squirming and simply shared my friend with my dearest earthly friend. It was a learning lesson for me. And it made my friend, aka my Bible, that much dearer because it was shared with my husband.

All Bibles are special because they contain the Lord's word, that is, or should be, the only reason a Bible has value, in money or sentiment, but somehow in our earthly world there are earthly ways of placing value on a Bible that have nothing to do with the Lord. Antique Bibles are very valuable as collectors items. Facsimile Bibles are expensive. Leather binding raises the price. Certain publishers sell their Bibles for more... There is a long list of why and how and which Bible is valuable and which are cheap 'throw away' Bibles. 

The Bible I use most isn't worth anything in earthly terms. I think I paid 11.00 for it. It does have a sewn together binding, something that raises it, in earthly terms, from the category of 'throw away', but it does not have a leather cover. What it does have is my Lord's word in a book that feels good in my hands and carries many lessons and memories for me when I look at it. And to me...it is priceless.

There is this fairly new fad of what they call Bible journaling. I don't know who started it. I don't know when it started. What I do know is that it is supposed to be a way of studying Scripture that makes it more meaningful. Maybe it does. I don't know. I have been writing in my Bible since I got my first one at the age of 7. 

Back then my Bible was a free Bible, put out by the Gideons. How I came by it I don't know. I was going into second grade and had been enrolled in a 'Christian' school. One of the things I had to have was a Bible. That Bible was a King James Version and I could barely read. It may as well have been written in Russian or Chinese for all the sense it made to me.

It did have something that fascinated my seven year old self. The inside cover pages and a couple of the first pages were made out of some kind of black paper, similar to construction paper but better quality. Sometime during that second grade year I discovered that white crayons wrote on black paper. Oh, the fun that Bible gave me while I had to sit through Chapel every morning. Stars, hearts, words...they all appeared in bright white on that black paper. 

That was the beginning of my writing in Bibles and I still do it to this day. I tell my family it wouldn't be my Bible if I didn't write in it and if questioned further I tell them I bought my Bible, you know that Bible, for the sole purpose of writing in it. And write in it I do. I've been journaling in my Bibles since long before Bible journaling became a thing. It's just something I do. 

I still can't figure out what I think of the new Bible journaling idea. I have seen some examples that basically mark out all of Scripture except a single verse, whatever the verse being thought on is. I don't approve of that kind of Bible journaling. I've also seen some that does not take away from Scripture but instead adds pictures that somehow enhance it. I'm not opposed to that. 

I also find myself thinking that most of the people that do Bible journaling as it has become are probably not regenerated and therefore it really doesn't matter what they do anyway. 

I have tried the color a picture in your Bible kind of journaling. I think I did it on two pages in my Bible, you know the one that is that Bible.  

I had fun doing it and I learned something. I can't say I am opposed to it, although I can say that I am no artist, but I can't say I see it as necessary either. I did recommend it to my sister who is a wonderful artist. I thought it was something she might enjoy and that might be a legacy she could hand down to her children someday, a Bible filled with their mothers drawings. But I reccomended it for earthly reasons and not for Scriptural ones. 

I don't think journaling in a Bible the way people have taken to doing will teach deeper truths to unregenerate people. What I do think is that any time spent in Scripture is a good thing and if journaling in such a way will get someone studying Scripture it can't be bad. But...I don't think it will necessarily help either. The lost have a way of studying Scripture to death only to walk away with little to nothing gleaned from it. They study and study and study some more and fail to understand the Truth because they are blinded to it. For those that can see and understand the truth, journaling in their Bible isn't going to make or break that understanding.

There's nothing wrong with the sun and clouds I drew on one page or the tree and badly drawn miniature person I drew on another but the drawing of them did not draw me to Christ. I did ponder on the Lord's creation as I drew them but I was already thinking on it which is what drew me to those verses to begin with.

I enjoyed my brief foray into drawing in my Bible. I might do it again if the mood strikes me. I have at least one daughter that thinks it's neat and it opened up an avenue for discussion with her. That alone made it worthwhile. It also added to the conversation with my sister when I encouraged her to do it. So it wasn't wasted and was used for Biblical conversations, even if those conversations stemmed from coloring in a Bible. 

But nothing in that coloring helped my understanding of Scripture. It did not help my Salvation. Did not teach me anything of Christ. It kept my fingers busy while my mind pondered on something that I had been thinking on long before I picked up those coloring implements to decorate pages in my Bible.

There is nothing wrong with my drawing in my bible, nothing wrong with my notetaking and journaling. It doesn't take away from the Scriptures contained within the pages...although I am certain there are some that would say it does...and every once in a while it helps me sort out my own thoughts as I write a note here or compare Scripture there.

It also took a cheap Bible that would have most likely simply set on a shelf had I not taken to writing within its pages and turned it into my favored Bible. I can pick up any Bible and read the Scriptures, and I do. I can study and learn from any Bible, and I do. But it's the little things that I add, the notes and stories, hand prints and prayers, that turned a cheap Bible into my favored one.

It keeps me company when I'm lonely. Lifts my spirit when I am sad. Calms my worries. Chases away fears. It feeds my soul.  It is my Bible. It is my friend.