December 1st, 2014.
My Greatest Thanksgiving - My Most Treasured Gift!
Our Faith Journey, part VI of VI ? August 20, 1977
The Single Most Cherished and Blessed Memory of My Life!
(Okay, you can begin now...)
Think for a moment - what is the most precious gift you have ever been given? Will you share that with me after reading this post? I will treasure mine for as long as I live! It is the single greatest Thanksgiving Treasure I have ever been given!
You will notice in Lynn's picture here that she is wearing a heart shaped diamond necklace. How many hundreds it costs was a non issue to me. If I had been able to afford more, I would have gotten one with bigger diamonds. However, Lynn's parents were not too happy with me giving her such an elaborate and expensive gift. We were pretty young and her parents were somewhat taken aback by such a gift. I gave it no thought, but I had to take it back for a time. But it has been one of Lynn's most precious treasures, and she wears it quite often! Yet it was not her most favorite gift.
When I was nine years old my parents gave me a Bible for my birthday. It was very meaningful to me and I learned to truly appreciate it. But by my 15th birthday, I wanted a study Bible. One with all those cross references that I saw some other folks had. I had gone through some spiritual growing pains and I needed a Bible that I could use and study better.
So my parents got me a new Bible, and I fell in love with it. After a year or so I learned that it is okay to write notes in your Bible and began going so. Sparingly, but nonetheless I have always marked short notations or additional cross references as I have studied it.
Today, on my 56th birthday I have been using this same Bible for over 90% of all my Bible study for 40 years. It has become one of my more precious possessions. Complete with 40 years of notes and markings, I can often look at a simple handwritten word or underlined verse and remember the key points to meaningful sermons from years ago. I would be heartbroken to lose my Bible. But as precious as even my Bible is to me, it is not as treasured as the Greatest Gift I have ever been given!
I'm going to take you to the very spot and time - August 20th, thirty seven years ago - when and where I received the Greatest Gift I have ever been given! But it might not be what you are expecting me to be writing about. It has come to my attention that some folks have jumped to conclusions about what my repeated references to August 20th means. But they are wrong. You have read me saying, "but, not yet??" Now I finally get to tell you what this means!
Originally Posted by marshmallow
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