I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of regular bible journaling, with the help of my new morning basket. I’ve been slack this week, however, because on Sunday I took my journaling bible to church to take part in a series of interviews with various members of the congregation on how we read our bible, as part of our celebration of both Reformation Sunday, and Hour For Bibles. Then, of course, we got home and the kids wanted to pull me in 7000 directions at once and my bible got dumped on the table and covered with the next wave of through-the-door-debris dumping.
This morning, however, I was determined to make a conscious effort to do something in my bible. Today, 31st October 2017, marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed a piece of paper to a church door and began the Reformation. If ever there was a day to prioritise my journaling, it was today. Once we were organised for the day, we had no demands on our time until we had to head out for playgroup (huzzah for school break!) and the Beetle Baby roped his big brothers into playing trains while Butterfly snuck off and curled up with her book, busy on a quest to finish a book a day over break. With no pressing items on my to-do list, I grabbed my bible and took myself off to the craft room to get messy.
I found myself working in Romans, in a rather convoluted fashion. I started by googling “verses for reformation day”, which threw up a few options, but the ones that called out to me had already been journaled previously. I flicked forward a bit, and besides the verse on the afore-googled list, I hadn’t worked much in Romans, so I scanned to find an appropriate verse, and landed on this one, 5:1, which seemed to fit perfectly. I’m so happy with how my page ended up, simple as it is. I see so many gorgeous, intricate pages on Instagram, but I can never seem to pull them off. So I stick to what I know. Simple pops of colour and some basic lettering.
Sharing this morning’s page on Instagram made me realise I hadn’t shared any of my pages for quite some time, so I flicked through my bible and picked out some of my favourites to include in today’s post:
As the photo below shows, my poor old bible is starting to look very well loved! The elastic has given up the ghost, the cover is getting grubby from being carted from one end of the country to the other in our camper. It no longer closes flat, but instead holds itself slightly open, the pages twisted by paint and padded with embellishments. It is fine to flick through and see my very first faltering attempts, and watch as my confidence grows through the pages, and a style emerges.
It’s never going to win any awards, or have the instagram hordes gushing over it and rushing to be the first one to “like” it, but it is uniquely me, and it does it’s primary function – drawing me into The Word and helping me process what I am reading. I can’t wait to see it fill in even more over the next year… I wonder if by Christmas 2018, will I be in need of a new bible?
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