My Bible

This is sort of a response to my mom's recent blog post about Bibles.

The Bible

I learned to read in Kindergarten. I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing something before any of my classmates did. I distinctly remember visiting my great grandma afterwards, and feeling that pride swell up inside me as my parents told her. “Grace learned to read this week!” my dad shouted into her hearing aid. “What?” she asked. “GRACE LEARNED TO READ!!” With that, she nodded and turned to her bookshelf. “Read this.” she said, as she pulled out a little Bible. Then, with a very shaky hand, she filled out the “Presented to” page. (afterwards, I wrote “when I learned to read” in the “occasion” blank with a childish scrawl and a gold gel pen.)

There was nothing special about that Bible. It was your typical cheap maroon book with “Holy Bible” stamped on the front in gold letters. The gold on the side of the pages had begun to wear off, completely gone now, and there was a strange green-ish stain on the side. There was nothing special about the appearance of the book, but it was special to me. It was a free gift, and it was mine! I felt honored that my great grandmother would give me something of my very own. Nevertheless, I put it in my room, by my bed and never read it for years.

My sparkly Adventure Bible came with me to church every week and to summer camp, where I got saved. I learned to improve my reading skills, but I still didn’t read the Bible. My life didn’t change much. I began to doubt my salvation in steadily increasing amounts. As the Holy Spirit’s prompting grew, I stayed awake at night, when I didn’t have distractions, thinking about God and hell. I wondered if God was even real… then I panicked with the thought that maybe He was real, and I was going to go to hell because I didn’t think He was! One night when I was 12, I was so scared, that I turned on my lamp, and picked up that old Bible to read a passage. It was a pretty random passage, Acts 1, I think, but it comforted me. Although it was an ordinary passage, it came with the promise of Christ’s return, directed to me personally! This was the first time I experienced the Bible as “living and active.” Given no time to contemplate it, though, all I knew was that things got better when I read the Bible.

Thus began my nightly devotions. As I started to see that God is very real and willing to know me on a personal level, the old Bible’s sentimental value began to grow. I still had other Bibles I used for taking to church and camp, or some left upstairs for family devotions, but this one was the perfect size for reading by myself. It makes sense, then, that every small epiphany I had in my faith happened while reading that Bible.

The plan

I have made a good friend at school since my very first art class at Butler. He’s always been in most of my art classes, and we have had lots of chances to talk. Spiritual conversation is not typically easy to bring up, but I managed, and it wasn’t awkward at all. God put him on my heart, and I had been praying for his salvation. For once in my life I felt really comfortable talking about my beliefs to someone. The conversations we had were never much, but I know what he believes, that he’s confused, and that he knows where I stand. He knows that I have to be concerned for him because this is real, whether or not he thinks it is.

I’m ready to make it uncomfortable again.

I realized suddenly last Thursday that I need to give him my Bible. It has to be my special Bible; no other one would have the same meaning. It only makes sense that I share. He never would have known how great vanilla crème cookies from the vending machine were unless I shared with him. I did, and now he knows that they’re great. Jesus is great too. Why not share?

It has been harder than I thought. I cried a lot after I decided to give my Bible away. It’s one of my top three prized possessions, and I had planned to carry it with my bouquet down the aisle next June. I don’t own another soft, small Bible, and it will be missed. It wasn’t a big deal when I received it, but years later it became important to me. Maybe it could be that for someone else.

Pray for this.

Thanks!

Ho Malone III

It was the story of ONE BLOG.... (music begins)




then... ANOTHER blog went TOO far!! (music gets intense)





Then... a final blog decided to go where NO BLOG has gone BEFORE!

...not really

...It decided to push an old joke EVEN further!!!



This SPRING... Join Grace Page as she is...


HOME ALONE!

I was at the Duncan's yesterday for lunch, and my aunt and uncle had to meet some people somewhere. They suddenly left five young people around the table, home alone. "Butt! Butt! Fart!" someone yelled mischievously! Then Sarah got up and flicked the lights on and off with a huge grin on her face.
On another note, my mother worked very hard to re-varnish our kitchen floor! (Don't worry, mom! I didn't leave that footprint I thought I did!) Yesterday I wore socks, and in the one step it takes on the kitchen floor to get from the carpet to the bathroom, I almost fell. I guess it's easy to underestimate the varnish-y-ness! I then tried to purposely ice skate, and found myself inches from hitting my head on our "very rugged" chandelier! I guess it's a lot lower than it seems when hanging above a dining room table!

Kid's are SO Dumb!! (Mr. Cosby words it better.)

If observing at various schools for my Intro to Teaching class has taught me anything, it's that I should write a book titled "Do you like me? Circle yes or no" and it could be full of random things I've heard in schools.

For example: today I was called "The Magic Lady in Black" by a junior high boy.

Another time, I walked into the 1st grade music room to see an exasperated teacher squatting behind a podium, looking for something. She was so burnt-out, that she didn't even notice (or pay attention to) the cries of the other students when one particularly chubby girl was shaking her backside while standing on her desk.

While grading 3rd grade worksheets, I found one that said in the name blank:
"Name: K-STATE K-STATE"

A Dream in Three Parts, by Grace

I slept really hard last night with lots of crazy dreams... And I mean, REALLY crazy. So I feel really refreshed despite all the adventures I had...

First, I was racing along on a broomstick with two other people. There were other broomsticks around us. I decided I should try to witness to the people with me. They seemed interested, but I couldn't get through the gospel before we landed suddenly at our destination: a corrupt school/town, where everyone was becoming sin zombies!! Their skin was beginning to fall off according to how bad they were. The leader was this tall woman who had no outer layer of skin. Her veins were very much still there, holding together a white layer of flesh to cover her organs and muscles. She had no eyelids and she had a high ponytail of veins on her head.

Then this girl and I were running from this woman in my mother's second-hand store, trying to push bookshelves and clothing racks on top of us to keep her from being able to reach us. After a bookshelf trapped her legs, she used up her last effort to reach us with her arms, which were made of twisted veins. In our only method of defense, we began to untwist her arms so she couldn't use them. She died... or so we thought. Suddenly, she wiggled all her veins at us, and then died for real.

Act II: I was wandering around the old main street buildings in Halstead, looking for a bathroom. It ended up turning into a cowtown-like maze, and I kept wandering through empty and forgotten wild west hotel rooms until I finally found the bathroom which had an old fashioned toilet. Then I ran into an old friend who was with her boyfriend and his buddies who had discovered the place and were living in there. We talked for a while, but I felt like I was intruding, so I moved on to Act III...

I walked into my parents' church for the wedding rehearsal, only to find two extra bridesmaids: one I didn't recognize, and Emma, a teammate from cross country. My bridesmaids had appointed Emma as the Maid of Honor and the wedding coordinator boss. She began telling everyone how the ceremony would go down, and I was happy that someone was there to take charge on the day, but everything was really weird, besides the fact that there were seven bridesmaids and five groomsmen.
A wedding had taken place a week before, and the sancuary was full of rather strange furniture, but it matched my colors, so we left the strange couches and chairs there. Tim was supposed to stand a step lower than me, but then he got down on one knee, so in order to kiss him, I had to double over to reach him. I put my foot down at that idea, and suggested that we switch places. Then everyone sitting in the pews began to discuss whether wedding ceremony kisses were gross or cute.

Then I woke up.

Oh, Blogger, how I've missed thee!

Dear Emmaus Bible College,

I just want to thank you so much for taking me off your mailing list for my years of jucco! It meant a lot to me that you never seemed pushy in your phone calls or letters, and although I heard the Emmaus talk at camp a million times, it wasn't all that bad! Thank you also for filling the minds of young-folk with good, Biblical knowledge! We need more of you in the world!

Now it's time to transfer, and I got your letter again. Thank you, Emmaus Bridal College, but I'm already engaged.

Your Friend,
Grace Page

Cat Farm

I wish I had pictures for this post, but I don't, so you'll just have to bear with me.

So you know how most front doors actually have two doors? On a typical house, one might see a glass/screen door, followed by a pretty wooden door, and when you leave one open, it's okay because there's still a glass door.

Anyway, our house is in the country and we like to have very open windows so lots of sunlight can be let in. As some might say, "We're not really drapes." OUR front door is a glass storm door, followed by a glass door with a wooden frame.

Our pets like to whine to be let in on the other side of our storm door.

Recently, my father added one of those fancy contraptions to our outside door. You know the type: It has a tube and uses air to keep the door from slamming... and then towards the end it shuts quickly? Yeah, normal people have those, and we just got one!

Yesterday, we all came home from a trip to Halstead, and by the time we were all inside taking our boots off, the outside door was still wide open. The cat was a little too late to sneak inside, and got the main door slammed in her face. "Look at the cat!" my dad said, with an anticipating grin on his face. We all watched and waited for the cat to realize what was happening before she took off running, but she just continued to meow and beg to be let in.
Finally, the door slammed shut with just enough time for her to pull her tail in. She turned around with a bewildered expression on her face (if cats can have expressions) and we all laughed at her.
"What are those things called when you have pet ants?" my dad asked. "Ant farms?" I said. "Well, this is a cat farm!"

Recent Happenings

I haven't written, but I've been feeling the need to write for a while now. Here are some recent things that have happened:

• The biggest deal is that I got engaged this Thanksgiving while at Immanuel Mission in Arizona, visiting my Aunt Anne! My favorite quote from the trip was this: Dale: "So Joel, what was your favorite thing that you did on the trip?" Joel: "Grace getting engaged!" It made me laugh, and reminded me of another similar quote from three years ago... Sarah: "So Tim, would you rather have a girl who's really athletic, or one who's really musical?" Tim: "Uh... Grace!" Aw, you both are so sweet!
• Me being engaged leads to me thinking about a wedding, which is quite an adventure when you're on a tight budget! We have a place down, and a date (June 26th, by the way!) so now I can, for the most part, relax. I am getting ready to go on an excursion with my maid of honor to search second-hand stores for a hidden gem of a dress waiting for my expertise to fix it into something wearable... who knows? Maybe we'll find something!
• Speaking of my ability to sew... This blog post has mainly been an excuse to procrastinate a bit more of my task to finish five bridesmaid dresses for a wedding coming up on New Year's Day. Wanna see some pictures?! These are of my sewing adventures so far:
  

Here is the old Pfaff sewing machine I have to work with. She's actually pretty sturdy, and if anything goes wrong, my dad is a great help to fiddle with it for a while.

When I got to this point, Joel said, "Oh, so it's gonna be an Aladin wedding, and all the girls will look like Jasmine?" just to tease me, of course, but he tried one on for a picture!
I've gotten a lot further since then, but I am very ready to get these finished so I can focus on my own wedding! I am determined to have fun with this all, and to only focus on what really matters.