The first time I met Frances, I was a (relatively) young mom of three who was in the process of having my faith slowly thawed out after many years of confusion and anger at the God I had concluded must exist but couldn’t possibly care about me.  Frances taught a discipleship Sunday School class at the church our family had recently started attending, and I don’t remember a word of what she said that first morning because I could not stop staring at her Bible.  The cover was tattered and the pages were filled with markings—highlights and underlines and notes scribbled in the margins of what seemed like every single page.  In my naïve state of awe, I vividly remember assuming that she must have lost her husband or a child or endured some terrible hardship to have spent that much time reading her Bible.

Frances went on to become a spiritual mentor to me during our years at that church and even after we moved away, until hardships in both of our lives stole our opportunities for long telephone conversations.  But I have never forgotten her Bible, despite accepting that my love for having multiple Bibles—one in my book bag, one in my church bag, one from when I was thirteen, one by my special chair…—means that I will likely never have a Bible quite like Frances’s.

But because of the testimony her Bible spoke to me that Sunday morning almost sixteen year ago and some internal vow I likely made to seek that kind of “relationship” with my Bible, I constantly write notes in all of my Bibles.  Sometimes they are from messages or sermons I hear, but more often they are notes about what God says to me individually through particular passages.  Often I will write people’s names and dates in the margins so that I will remember a word someone shared with me or that God gave me to share with someone else.  Frances taught me to do that all those years ago, and the older my memory gets, the more I appreciate it.

After Easter a few weeks ago, I was trying to determine what to do for a devotional since the one I had used for Lent was (technically) over (even though I somehow managed to not finish the last three days of it!?).  I felt the Lord leading me to spend some time reading through the margin notes in my most marked up copy of the Bible, the one I bought while Frances mentored me.  I had never done this in a deliberate, systematic way, and the experience captivated me!

First I realized that the name at the front of my Bible was no longer accurate, so I crossed through it and symbolically dated the corrected surname as I wrote it onto the page.  I saw my “cardboard testimony” from 2011:  “Once a hopeless sinner; now a hopeful sinner hidden in Christ.” Yep, still true!  I read a note I had written on the title page after taking a two-year Bethel Intensive Bible Training course with my pastor: “The Bible teaches what it means to teach.” (Bethel 2003-2005)  I read life-giving words of prophecy and encouragement that had been spoken over me throughout the decade and a half that I had used this Bible, including most of chapter 14 of the book of Exodus that I have written so much about these past few months.  I remembered people and events I had not thought of in many years and read their cards and notes that had meant so much to me that I had placed them into the pages of my Bible for safekeeping.

Eventually I stumbled upon a piece of notebook paper neatly folded and tucked into the Book of Ezekiel.  At the top of the page, I had written “For Mother’s Day 2015…”  As soon as I began to read, a flood of negative memories filled my mind.  I recalled sitting in my car by a lake, sobbing and scribbling my heart out to the Lord that Mother’s Day afternoon.  My marriage had slowly and quietly become a place of deep darkness, and the toxicity that resulted in both of us had finally started to spill out over the entire family.  Knowing my children were now experiencing the pain of our mistakes broke my mother’s heart.  Words like failure and poison and darkness and details I would never want anyone else to read filled the front and back of that single sheet of notebook paper.  As difficult as it was to read and remember that day, I am so grateful that I captured and saved my desperate outpourings. Near the end of the back page, I had written a prayer…”Come Holy Spirit, come!  Send angels to minister to my broken heart and to bind the wounds.  Fill me anew and let me focus my eyes upon you, and soften my heart toward those who have hurt me. Redeem my days, oh God.  Let them not be in vain.”  And alongside the prayer I had written this Scripture that the Lord had immediately shared in response:

“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:  I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.  I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.” (Ezekiel 34:11-12, NIV)

I then turned to that passage in my Bible and saw a note in the margin dated 12/16/12—just before Timothy’s first Christmas with us—a Christmas we spent in the Transitional Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital.  The note in the margin said, “I am the Lord’s precious and loved sheep and He will always care for me (vision in prayer time).”

The Lord had given me that vision two-and-a-half years before that miserable Mother’s Day in 2015.  I may not have known all that was to come—the death of a child, the adoption of twins, the destruction of a marriage, the unraveling of a family—but He knew, and He promised in advance to search for me and to look after me and to rescue me.  And He reminded me of that promise when the darkness became so thick that it overwhelmed me.

Turning page after page of my Bible, I could see so clearly how He has kept His promise to me and to my children. It may not have been in the ways I expected or even wanted, but He is faithfully walking me THROUGH (not around) the dark valley to a place of light and abundance.

1 Samuel 7 recounts the story of Samuel calling people to abandon their idols and false gods and return to the Lord with all their hearts.  He then sacrificed and interceded on behalf of the Israelites, and God delivered them mightily in a battle with the Philistines. Samuel responded by setting up a stone.  “He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped me.’” (1 Samuel 7:12, NIV)

As I flipped through my Old Testament notes, I realized that the value of capturing them isn’t just to remember the past.  It is so much more. Every time I remember His faithfulness, I lay an Ebenezer stone.  The stones not only represent the Lord’s provision in the past, they provide a place of sure footing for walking forward.  Some are boulder-size, representing major deliverance or miraculous provision.  Others are small but much-needed gifts of a timely word of simple truth spoken just when I needed it most.  No matter the size of the stones, I can stand on them, resting in His kept promises and gaining strength for that next step.  The path He has for me is not visible for miles ahead but is revealed one stepping stone at a time.

I call upon Him. He answers. I remember.  And another stone is laid, ready for my next step of faith.

 

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you.  You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed…And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.” (Joel 25-26, 32, NIV)