Just before school started back up again, I visited my parents and sister in South Florida. It was the very end of Andito and Isabel’s summer visit with their abuelos and titi. While I was there I got see and hold my great grandmother’s bible. I have known about this bible for years but had new eyes for it since accepting Christ Jesus in my heart.
My great grandmother’s bible is old and doesn’t have a cover. Some of the pages are missing, some are crumbling, all of them are worn. As I thumbed through it, I realize she didn’t just read this bible, evidenced by the many underlining of words and passages; she wrote in this bible. Every page I saw had handwriting all along the margins and any empty space on the page. Every page is a collection of thoughts, prayers, and praises preceded by a date; these were journal entries. Often there is more than one entry on one page. The writing was done with different pens, sometimes pencil. The handwriting is distinct with some days proving more difficult to write than others.
There are so many things that struck me as I read page after page. My great grandmother poured her heart out into the margins of every page. MARGINS!! As in the border or edge around the main printed matter on a page. I have written a few words of what comes to mind in a margin. I may draw a heart or smiley face next to a paragraph to draw attention to that part of the page. But never have I ever deemed the margins to be enough to write a full coherent thought much less, worthy of pouring the contents of my heart. There simply isn’t enough space in a margin! And when I think of what a margin is, it frames and sets up the main important content of a page. In other words, the margin is the unimportant part, the left-over, the fringe edge of the page. In real estate terms, margins are sub-prime.
Yet, my great grandmother saw opportunity when she looked at the margins. She saw a space worth using. She could have put phone numbers or notes from a phone conversation. She could have used the margins for anything. But she chose to occupy that unimportant left-over space with the most precious things she held as a God loving woman, wife, mother, grandmother. She wrote from the heart of a woman who prayed for her aches and pains to go away and praised God for healing. She wrote from the heart of a wife who prayed for strength to care for her husband who was in the end stages of Alzheimer’s. She wrote from the heart of a mother who prayed for her children and the different trials they encountered in their adult lives. She prayed from the heart of a grandmother, over many years, for her grandson, to return to the path she showed him as a boy, to return to God’s Word. She turned to God for her every need and praised Him for every joy, blessing and answered prayer. Her writing does not sparkle like that of a poet or polished author. Her writing is succinct, pure, and raw. That space, juxtaposed to the Word of God, was enough for her. It makes me ponder the missed opportunities I passed as “unworthy” or “unimportant.”
That bible is a treasure. That bible is a beautiful testament of my great grandmother’s faith. In her choosing to use the margins, this unimportant space to pour the contents of her heart, I see Jesus in her. It was Jesus who proclaimed the poor, the sick, the marginalized, worthy of God’s gift of grace, forgiveness, and eternal life. It was Jesus who poured into people deemed unimportant by most.
As a believer, I pray that I live and do things in such a way that people see more of Him and less of me.
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