A stolen holiness....

As a child, I lived in an environment of spiritual, emotional and yes, even physical violence. I grew up believing it was a normal thing to suppress my own emotions, to practice invisibility, and to fear not only for my own life but for the lives of my siblings as well.

It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that my family wasn't religious. We didn't go to church, or read the bible, or even talk about a loving God.

I remember being very young and finding my mother's family bible. It was a huge, leather bound monster of a bible.

I loved it immediately.

I loved it because it was a book, and books were my best and most loyal friends. I also loved it because it was a thing of beauty. From the soft ivory leather of the cover/binding, to the slippery onion skin pages, oh my, it was a beautiful thing....and I loved my mother's bible so much, that I stole it from her.

I hid that bible away; and every now and then, I would secretly take it out and simply admire its beauty.

When I moved away from home, I spirited my mother's bible away with me as well. It has traveled with me all these years; and every now and then, I still take it out just to admire the beauty of its ivory leather cover and its slippery onion skin pages. I don't read from it often because it is simply too large, and too awkward for casual reading.

I have other bibles now...smaller bibles with their own black leather covers and onion skin pages that I use regularly for devotional reading and study.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this story today; but I can tell you that my mother always knew I had her bible. She never once tried to take it from me. For all of her faults, I think she understood and respected my need to possess something so breathtaking that it's very beauty could somehow speak to all that was still good and whole within myself.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if my mother ever found the love story written for her between those two beautifully bound covers of her bible. I hope she did. I hope she discovered how much God loves her and it is my prayer that on some level she responded affirmatively to God's invitation to love him in return.

It must have been this very hope which drove Christ to choose death on the cross, just as surely as it is this same hope which drives me to live my life at the foot of His cross.

Me, a woman with her stolen bible, living her life at the foot of the cross.....it all seems fitting somehow, doesn't it?