Something I’ve always done is write out Bible verses and passages I want to remember and reference. Verses that are helpful, uplifting, comforting. Verses that remind me of God’s love and who Jesus is.
I have pages of those handwritten verses, some of the pages dating back decades, tucked away in Bibles and notebooks.
I’ve got stacks of index cards with a verse on each card. Some are placed around the house or in drawers where I’ll come upon them unexpectedly. Over time, I’ve filled two or three spiral-bound “index card journals” with verses. Several years ago, I started keeping a large ring of index cards with verses, and I continue to add to it.
Copying verses by hand has been, and will continue to be, important and valuable to me.
But something I’d never done – until this month – is copy out an entire book of the Bible.
This month I wrote out the book of Ruth.
And what a blessing it has been!
Sometime last spring, as I was roaming around youtube looking at videos about Bible journaling, I came across Cat Woods’ channel. This month she’s had a challenge to write out, copy out, the entire book of Ruth.
Ruth isn’t a long book. It has only four chapters.
I figured I could manage four chapters in a month, so I decided to take on the challenge.
I gathered the journal and the Bible I wanted to use. I settled on the NLT, the New Living Translation, for my writing.
And I decided to use a purple pen… just because I love purple pens.
(The fact that the purple ink went along with the color theme of my journal was a happy plus.)
I chose to use a separate journal for writing down study notes, name meanings and word definitions, map notations, and various things like that.
At the beginning of this month I got started. I didn’t follow a plan of writing certain verses or a set number of verses each day. I wrote as much as I felt guided to write each time (and also going by how my eyes were doing, since that’s something I have to be mindful of).
I finished a few days ago.
The whole experience has blessed my life.
Writing out an entire book has helped me see the whole context, and receive the message of the book, in a deeper and richer way than ever before.
Over the decades, I’ve heard sermons and Sunday School lessons about Ruth, I’ve done Bible studies about this book of the Bible, and I already knew so much about the story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz.
But this experience has taken the messages and meanings of this book to a whole new level for me.
Something about writing out all of Ruth has made it sink in more.
I’ll still be copying down individual verses and passages – that’s not going to stop.
I’m adding something else too, though – writing out entire books of the Bible… letting the Word flow into me in an even deeper way as the ink flows out of my pen, verse by verse and chapter by chapter, from the beginning of a book until the end.
I haven’t decided yet which book is next.
But I have the whole Bible to choose from.
♥
Ginger Simpson White 