It all changed for me on my 24th birthday.
I have never been fussy about gifts. My memories of childhood gifts are blurry at best, most vivid of which was during the time we lived in the Caribbean Sea-side town of Black River in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. Each Christmas my parents would take my sister and I to the bookstore where we would pick out our books of choice. I amounted an impressive Nancy Drew collection, if I may say so myself. I remember us having a Christmas tree, but there’s no gifted toy that stands out in my mind. I guess they never really mattered to me.
As I’ve gotten older I got accustomed to not having gifts for birthdays or Christmases. However, when presented with a gift bag or wrapped item my expectations show up, and shows up in great force. So, on my 24th birthday, imagine my delight in unwrapping an unexpected birthday gift…a Bible.
I felt deflated. What in the world were my parents thinking??? I already had Bibles that I brought to church when not collecting dust in a corner somewhere. It sat untouched for a year and a half.
Then, life changed for me and that precious gift that I was most ungrateful for became the very air in my lungs, and shifted the course my life was on. It was the Life Application Study Bible – New Living Translation, and applied to my life it became.
Now, thanks to the seed planted on my 24th birthday you can share in some of the things I have or will discover as I continue to study the Bible; questions I grapple with, things that challenge me, messages that ring loudly to me…they will all be shared here. Don’t leave me by myself, add your comments and let’s journey together.
Cami Speaks 