On the 27th Anniversary of the Day of My Birth

King James and I had a reunion today.

I couldn't find my special Bible--I think I left it at Holli, Cely, and Katie's house. So I dusted off the old broken blue pleather King James-er given to me three months after my birth by some dear family friends. The school where I spent kindergarten through tenth grade didn't allow us to use a version other than King James... I think because of evil things like copyrights and paraphrases. I got pretty used to hearing the 'thees' and 'thous.' Since leaving the school, however, I can't remember cracking the blue pleather, and the NIV translations have replaced my KJV memory verses. It was a beautiful day today--almost 75--and it was porchswing time once again (armed with kleenex and claritin).

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

In second grade, I discovered highlighting. I had noticed Dad obediently ruffling through his Bible to find Hezekiah-something that the pastor had rattled off in a foreign language on Sunday morning. And there they were! Flashes of color on the tissue-thin pages. They couldn't have been pictures. They were too small and monochromatic to be pictures. Why did his have color? Mine was only black and white. Then I noticed the girl sitting next to me in chapel had color in hers, too. She had written in her Bible! Her Bible! We weren't allowed to make any marks in our readers, but here she was making marks in color in God's book! After school, I went straight to my dad's desk where I knew he kept his yellow highlighter for his calendar. I took the highlighter and my Bible back to my room and shut the door. I opened up to page one and began my beautification process. Random verses of the first three pages of Genesis are still an aged yellow. My childhood was apparently before cell phones and pink highlighters, because almost all of the highlighting throughout is yellow. Also yellow but done a few years later:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

I leave for Germany Tuesday to "survey the land," as D.D. puts it. This time it's not a vacation. This time I am visiting a new people and a new place that God may be calling me to claim as my own. Tuesday looms like Easter weekend--excitement for Resurrection Sunday mixed with the dread of knowing Good Friday must come first.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

As you read this, would you please pray that God would heal my body before I leave and that I would hear His voice clearly while I am there? Thanks.