Remember God by Annie F. Downs

Author:Annie F. Downs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Life/Women's Issues
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2018-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

8

I woke up that Monday morning, grabbed a juice from the fridge, and then headed to my khaki chair with the black swirls. It’s been my spot for years. Like, almost a decade. Next to it is the table that used to be my grandmother’s bedside table. It’s got one exposed horizontal shelf on top of four vertical shelves where she used to keep the phone books lined up. Now it holds all manner of spiritual books for me: the ones I’m reading, the ones I’m referencing, journals recently finished.

I go through the same routine every morning, a luxury brought about by being single. I wake up about six and go start hot water for my tea. Then I walk through the house opening the curtains, shades, and blinds. Depending on the time of year, this either allows light in or reveals the need to turn on a few lamps because of how dark it still is outside. On this day in June, it brightened the kitchen, my office, the living room. Then, like every morning, I sat in my chair, legs crossed under me, with the brown blanket over my lap, and I read. And journaled. And prayed.

Juice replaced the tea this morning, and I was hungry.

Almost laughable to be hungry on Day Two when you’re headed for Day Seven, but I was. My stomach was growling for food. The first few days, your body is so vocal thinking maybe you’ve forgotten to feed it, and that maybe yelling at you might remind you. My body was acting like a wide-awake baby stuck in a crib.

So in my moment of desperation, I decided to read where Jesus says that man doesn’t live by bread alone. If He could resist the temptation of food throughout forty days, surely I could survive the first forty HOURS of my own fast.

I searched on my phone for the location of that Scripture, and then I opened my Bible. I’ve used the same Bible since 1995, when I was in the ninth grade. My parents gave it to me as a Christmas present that year, The Quest Study Bible, because it’s the kind of Bible my friend Molly used, and I wanted to be just like her. Over the years, through high school, college, my life as a teacher, my life in Nashville, and my life in Edinburgh, this Bible has probably been the only consistent companion across all stages of my life. The verses that are underlined, the notes out to the side in the margins—they all remind me of this story I’ve been living for decades now. I see Bible teachers and friends get excited to have a new Bible, and I definitely own other ones of different translations that I reference often. But MY Bible? It’s the navy blue one that’s already been re-covered once and now is duct-taped again. The edges of the covers are frayed and the tabs have all fallen off. It’s more than just words on pages.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.