November 15th-November 20th, 2012 A new blogging challenge…

     I have been thinking the last few days about how to revive my blog. Part of this revival process for me is to get back into the writing groove. It’s like exercise for me. I can take a break for a little while, but gradually my body tells me that it needs the energy, strength, flexibility, and overall healthy effects exercise provides me with, so I start again. Lately, my brain has been telling me that it needs the cathartic experience, daily insight, and mental exercise writing provides me.  But this time, I want to provide something more to my readers than just a daily log of my life. I want to challenge myself to write for others as much as for my own good.  I figured a worthy exercise that might provide substance for others as well would be to write about reading through the Bible in 365 days.  This challenge was inspired by one of my many Bibles.

     I have several Bibles from my years growing up in church. My first Bible is very traditional looking, and it has my name etched in gold letters on the black letter cover, Susannah Gray, and it is inscribed on the inside as being a gift from the First Baptist Church of Huntsville, Al on October 4, 1981. I love this Bible. It is well worn and has many good memories for me.  I also have a leather Amethyst colored (my birthstone color) Student Bible, also inscribed with my name (although this time my full name, Susannah Elizabeth Gray) given to me by my mom on Christmas Day in the year 1988.  This one is also a bit worn, but not quite as much because it bears a well-worn flowered book cover with nice pockets to keep all kinds of notes from the sermon or whatever Bible study I was attending at the time I left the notes in there (some of which are still there to this day).  It also has lots and lots of pink and green highlights, particularly throughout the New Testament.  Speaking of the New Testament, I also have a small one of just that plus the Psalms and Proverbs that ended up with me although it is inscribed on the inside as being given to my best friend growing up, Aimee Britt, from her Christian school, Impact Academy, in March of 1988.  It’s one of the red Gideon Bibles you often find in hotel rooms.  All of these Bibles, by the way, are in different translations. The first one is the Revised Standard Version, the Student Bible is New International Version, and the small Gideon Bible is the Authorized King James version.  The next version I have is one that has no inscription, but it is well worn because it belonged to a good friend of my mom’s who is now in Heaven with her Creator, and her name was Jewel. My mom could tell you more about the importance of Jewel in her life, but what I can tell you is that she was truly a Zealous follower of God, spending her days, even while greeting people at Wal-Mart, blessing others and talking about the wonder of her Savior! I spent many an evening in her backyard swimming pool while my mom and other woman friends visited and ministered to each other.  She gave me a version of the Bible I had never heard of before, The Amplified Version, which really puts the old languages of the Bible into today’s English.  It is not leather or fancy in any way, but it speaks to me in ways the words in my other versions cannot always reach me. After this, I received a Bible, which I can’t find right now, and it’s actually upsetting me a bit, it is the Woman’s Bible with a pink leather cover inscribed by church friends who gave it to me as a high school graduation present in May of 1993.

     Next to last, as part of my growing fascination with the various versions of the Bible, I purchased a People’s Parallel Edition Bible, which has the King James Version and the New Living Translation side by side, so I don’t miss a thing between what was said in the original translation and how we say things now. J  Anyway, the idea for the new daily blog challenge in my life came from the last version I purchased myself, which is the Daily Bible I bought years ago in an attempt to read through the entire bible in 365 daily readings. It is the NIV (New International Version), but the big difference between this version and all the others is the way the 365 readings are laid out, more as a devotional than any other Bible, and of course, it breaks it down by date into small sections to be read every day along with some insightful background and historical information interspersed as deemed necessary.  There, that’s it. With all of these Bibles, you would think I’d read through them several times already, but that’s not the case, so this is my new writing, and I believe, possibly life-changing, challenge, to read through the Bible in 365 days, writing down what insights I gain from it each day.  Say a prayer for me that I can do it.  I wasn’t fully able to keep the first challenge to write every single day for a year, but I was still blessed by the experience, so if I can do this and meet the challenge this time too, I’m sure I’ll be doubly blessed and maybe God will bless someone else through it in the process!! Of course, I can’t officially start the 365 day Bible until January 1, but I am going to take the next month of so to practice by taking a verse or two from my devotional reading time and write about it when for this blog, so I can be more prepared for the challenge to begin on the first day of 2013!! Thanks for reading, and we’ll “talk” again soon.