Old Bibles

Where do old Bibles go when they retire?  This isn't a joke, I really am wondering - when you get a new Bible, what do you do with the old one?  Surely you wouldn't just throw it away, but can you give away a used Bible?  Mine tend to get marked up and would be a hot mess for anyone else to try to wade through. 

See, I am not exaggerating.  This is a page from the Bible I used in high school.

Me, I've saved all mine.  (Of course, I save a lot of stuff)

Some are on bookshelves...

some live in my bedroom...

and on the bookshelf in the bedroom, I think there is one more.  Plus a huge family Bible that never comes out of its box.

It is kind of cool to pull them out and flip through and see how God was talking to me at that point in my life.  Also is fun to look through a Bible you haven't used in awhile and see what you left tucked between the pages.  Here are some recent findings from the Bible in the first picture.

• Inside the front cover: a letter written to me from younger friend when I was going off to college and she was still in high school.  Haven't talked to her in years.  It was surreal to read.
• My bookmark was in Isaiah 40 & 41.  Guess I have loved those passages for a long time.
• Between Matthew 5 and 6, a piece of paper with a friend of mine's address (again, from HS youth group) in my handwriting and a personal message from him in his: "Git [sic] a real life".  On the back of the paper: The Beatitudes.  Quite the eclectic mix.
• In the back, a Christmas card from 50 Watts, my fave youth group leader; a bulletin from the church we visited on the TPCC senior spring break trip; the playbill from a play I was in (I think senior year?); and a timeline I wrote in 1990.  Unfortunately the time line had no future predictions for me to look back on, but very cool to look back at some past events that when I was 18 seemed like milestone moments in my young life.

So, back on the shelf until next time, I guess...