taken from www.bettsgarden.com - my favorite site for years now...

love this
have you ever found an old bible and with all the little things stuck in it? amazing what people put in them.
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"I will marshal all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide." - In the Loop

i love it too thank you CW

wow...we often use our bible as ornament instead of reading it daily...thanks for sharing

I remember when I was talking to a Russian about ten years ago and we were discussing the difficulties under our different social systems. he listened to me for a while and then was silent in thought for a minute and then told me that our problem was that we didn't have enough adversity.
I was at first offended, but I let it pass while we continued the conversation. It wasn't until much later that I discovered what he meant...and he was absolutely right.
many of us have used prayer for our own selfish gains, and that includes myself. When I was younger I used to wish that God would throw lightning bolts at the people by whom I felt ill used or mistreated. I like to think I have gotten past that, at least...but I doubt that I have. Still my pastor shocked us all a few years ago when he said from the pulpit that if we really understood the horror of hell, we would never wish anyone to go there.. even when we were angry. I realized it was a sobering thought.. and he was right too.
But my Russian friend had pinpointed the very reasons why the Bible sits gathering dust in various homes instead of being read: our society doesn't suffer very well...and when it does, it seeks solace in medicine, politics or technology. God has been placed by the wayside, sometimes close enough when something really terrible happens, but not close enough where He can get in the way of what we call our freedom to do with our own bodies as we please. This too is a sobering thought. Our Bibles have become restrictors rather than our solace and foundation. We are all too willing to see the sense in it until it perhaps explains things different from how we see them. My Russian friend understood us from the outside better than I did.
I had the good fortune to sit with a retired pastor of about 86 years of age and study the book of Isaiah a few years ago. During that time, he talked about how the book revealed new things to us, perhaps not each time we read it, but often enough as to provide thoughtful revelation when we applied ourselves. So much of what he said revealed itself as we studied, mostly because each of us came with an open heart along with our open minds. One would think that the poor old book must be somewhat finite, but I have yet to find it so. The real difficulty, however, is not in discovering the lesson which God wishes us to understand. The real problem is how much courage it takes to not only understand that which is good and true in His message for us, but to take that understanding out into the world and put it into practice.

1) your Russian friend had a very good point
2) people can study the bible for their entire life and still never fully understand it all or grasp it all
2) remind me not to piss you off - i really don't want to be struck by lightening.
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"I will marshal all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide." - In the Loop