“Milky Bible”

Thoughts on Jen's Bible:  I spilled milk on her Bible.  Then some of the pages stuck together.  Couldn't get to a good chunk of the Old Testament because the pages were stuck together.  It was a nice little Bible.  Had an imitation leather cover and pages with that gold stuff round the edges.  NRSV, I think.  Brand new only months before, then I spilled milk on it.  Apple Jacks milk, to be exact.  Left over from the cereal I had for breakfast.  It was a nice little Bible, except you couldn't read much of the Old Testament, the milk had dried the thing shut from Ruth to the minor prophets.  Jen used it like this for a while.  Then one day we were eating lunch at Borders, and I spied her crusty little Bible sitting on the top of her little stack of books.  I decided to fix it.  I decided to separate all those stuck-together pages, one by one.  It was my first day of Spring Break, and I had the time, so rather patiently, I began.  Book by book, chapter by chapter, page by page, I opened that little Bible up again.  Opened it up so it could be read.  Some of the pages were so stuck together they ripped a bit as they parted.  All of them lost their golden glitter, and some came out looking quite crumpled.  But you could read them.  They could be read.  They could breathe and be seen.  Not like when they were all stuck together.  I told Jen as I was doing this that I was quite certain there was a parable in it somewhere.  She said, "Yeah, try the Gospels."  I said, "No, I mean in what I'm doing  - gently tearing these pages open, one by one, so they can be read again."  She smiled.  Then I got it.  Nothing terribly profound.  Nothing new.  Just applicable.  God puts stuff in each of us.  Good stuff.  Stuff the world needs to see.  He puts in us expressions of His character - unique expressions of who He is, and what He values - and through all these put together He displays Himself to the world.  We are each pages in His book - in His revelation of Himself to us and to the world.  But we're fallen, crusted, and closed shut.  And we need His redemptive work in us, opening our pages, bringing His work inside us out where others can see - out where He can be seen, and cause people to know that He is, and that He is good.  With time-consuming precision, with patience and tender persistence, God tears the crusted souls of each of us open, one by one, setting us free to breathe and be seen.  We may come out looking a little crumpled.  Our golden edges may be a bit faded, and our pages a little torn, but if this is God's way of making sure His finest work can be seen by this world, so be it.  He knows best, and that is a good thing.