The Keith in My Margin

There once was a girl who was given a Bible.  It was a gift for her fourteenth birthday, and it was monogrammed with her initials and inscribed with ink that soaked into her soul.   The fine pages printed in Belgium tattered in her year after year reading, but her thinking was conversely becoming new. 

This girl had little life experience when she uncapped a pen and recorded significant verses under the Occasions to Remember in the front of her Bible.  She pressed her pen firmly and neatly as she wrote so that her soul would never forget that which she knew through Christ revealing: the birth of her Lord, the death of her Lord, the resurrection of her Lord and the return of her Lord.   And then, she underlined the caption word "Remember" at the top of the page. 

Years went by, and her life experiences increased.  Different pens were uncapped.  The front pages of her Bible became fuller with previously unknown facts.   Her new husband was revealed on the Marriage Certificate right after the Presentation Page.   And if you flipped another page, you got to advance to the subsequent births of her children.

As the alphabet begins with the letter "A",  her first child did too.   The next child's name was printed in love by her husband's hand in the front her Bible.    Three more precious names came and this girl's Bible still had plenty of room.   The blank space seemed symbolic that her story was not fully written.

Though leather bound, the inside of the Bible became scotch-taped and the spine, hot-glued.   When First John and Jude kept falling out, that girl decided she would rather leave her Bible home than to lose a portion in a parking lot.  The girl shopped the internet for her discontinued Bible.  She was delighted when she found one used.  It would mean that the verse's location would match her memory and be on the same column, three-fourths of the way down.

Her new used Bible came in the mail.  There were highlighted verses she wished were only underlined in pencil, but the girl was still thankful that she would not have to chase, in heels, John and Jude on the next windy Sunday.   After all, the binding was tight and the pages were absent of scotch-tape.

As the girl read through her Bible, she came to a heart-breaking place in the book of Jeremiah.  It seemed fitting that as Jeremiah was commonly called the weeping prophet, that in this particular book another would weep as well.   The previous owner had scratched the name Keith in the margin.   Beside his name was annotated verses 32-35.   The text spoke of how the people of Israel had turned their backs on God and not their faces.   It spoke of great wickedness and disinterest in God as the people sought purpose before detestable idols. 

Oh, Keith, what have you done? 

I am that girl who cringes that Keith is in that particular margin of my Bible.   Was Keith her beloved husband, her dear son, her precious brother or her good friend?   Keith meant something special to her to record his name in the sacred Book. 

When I reach page 706, Keith's page, I pray for him.   I long that Keith may experience the glorious freedom as a worshipper of Christ.  I long for the previous owner of my Bible to own a new well-read one where Keith's name is marked in a different margin.  May her lost Keith be found, heralded beside Revelation 3:11-12 instead. 

 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 

The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. 

Never again will they leave it. 

I will write on them the name of my God ...

There once was a girl who was given a Bible.  It was a gift to her in her third decade, and though its leather cover wasn't monogrammed, the inside words were monogrammed on her heart.