Newer isn't always better

 The markets are saturated with the call to upgrade.  They will tell you that you will not be able to thrive without the latest version of whatever it is you use.  But wait, before you toss out the previous, look closely -- there may be treasures in your midst.  

An Old Worn out Bible 

The Bible's leather cover are beginning to crack.  The onion skin paper is feathery, thin.  The pages holding "In the beginning" or "The Lord is my shepherd" or "For God so loved the world" are stained by the oil of hands that knew hard work.  Some of the words are blurred by tears that flowed freely from eyes that had seen babies sigh their last breath minutes after taking in their first.

Scattered here and there between the pages of King James scripture are the pressings of significant days --

            A rose

            A palm leaf

            A tiny portrait

            A funeral card

            A lock of hair

I have many other Bibles on my shelf.  A study Bible, a devotional Bible, an Orthodox Bible, The Message.  I  read them all.

But I don't read this oldest and most fragile Bible.

It belonged to the dear elder, Hilda, who owned my home before me.  It was nestled in an old steamer trunk hidden in one of the attic cubbies.  Perhaps it had been forgotten or cast off in favor of more readable or user friendly versions of the Bible.  (Somebody must have decided:  why would anybody trudge through all the thees and thous and sayests and didsts?) Or perhaps it had been placed in hiding as a precious treasure, for as the years passed the nieces and nephews had been purging the household of her old "stuff".

I don't know all of the details hidden between the pages.  Time has claimed the facts, dates and figures.  Still, Their message melts into my heart without providing any data.  The frail Book contains the power, majesty and endurance of a life guided by, and now enfolded in God's love.

Somehow the e-version of the Bible seems very limited to me now.  It doesn't have pages to embrace the threads and petals and palms of my life.