My Bible

It started with a simple conversation while raking leaves in a hot, swealtering summer of a La Grange, Texas day. He and I were raking leaves trying to clean up camp because it was time for the big bar-b-que fundraiser. Camp had to be nipped and tucked and squared away. I got leaf raking duty. OUr hands hurt and were blistered. We were dirty, thirsty, tired, and I was probably on my way to sunburn. Our white t-shirts where black with yardgrime. In short, we were a mess, but we talked as we worked.

I don't remember the conversation so much or how we got onto the topic, but by the end he had ministered to me in a simple, yet profound way. He "gave me" the following Bible verse: "

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved

." (Acts 2:21). Pow. I remember reading that over and over again. I have it circled in blue pen. That was the beginning of real Bible reading and the beginning of writing in my Bible. I didn't get to thank him until four years later. He was shocked that I remembered and that I had taken that to heart. I wrote this in the margin: "Adam Brewer "gave" this verse to me in the summer of '96. This is one of the most important "Revelations" I have had in regards to the Bible. Thank God for it!!!" It took something like that for me to get it. I'd grown up in the church, heard the stories and new the hymns. I knew when to stand up and sit down. I knew the service by heart and I could mouth the words, but at the time, I think, they had no meaning to me. Sure, I knew what they meant, but that's not what I mean. I have acted in a couple plays, I had to memorize lines and recite them back on cue. I could do that with the typical Lutheran service. It was rote. I was a the Christian equivalent of a Skinner pigeon. The light went on and I pecked at a button to get my food. It didn't mean anything, though. It just was. Acts 2:21 changed that. It opened something in me that I hadn't experienced before. I didn't realize I was thirsty until I had a taste of the water and then I couldn't get enough.

Now, my Bible is finally broken in. It is, I believe, about 18 years old. It has duct tape on the spine and the cover is starting to show some cardboard on the corners. I have, through the course of time, written verses that meant important things to me on the outside edges of the Bible. The inside front cover is a collage of things I've found in bulletins or simply made and taped in. One of the back pages is almost filled with small writing of verse notations that have struck me as I read.