A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
My earliest childhood memory is still very clear in my mind. I was less than two-years-old, held in my mother’s arms in a service at First Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas. I don’t remember the preacher, Dr. J. Frank Norris, but I was fascinated by a fountain of water that gushed from the baptistry wall into the baptistry. Then someone passed to my Mother a plate full of broken crackers! This young congregant didn’t realize we were in the midst of a solemn communion service. I reached out and grabbed a fistful of those tantalizing crackers. And I can still feel my Mother’s firm hand squeezing my arm until I let every morsel drop back into the plate!
That thwarted spiritual exercise didn’t dampen by enthusiasm for spiritual things, mostly because my father and mother so sincerely and earnestly loved God that it made me love Him too. A stack of Bibles always awaited us at the breakfast table. Every morning, right after breakfast, our family of eight would open those Bibles and read a chapter aloud, each child reading two verses. No matter if the chapter was a list of “begats” or “thou shalt nots,” we never skipped a chapter, but read all the way through the Bible again and again. For the child too young to read, Daddy would read it slowly, and let the child repeat it after him. I learned a reverence for the Word of God in those childhood days that I’ve never lost.
When I was about eight years old, I decided I needed a Bible of my own. The church book store had an inexpensive Bible published by the American Bible Society. It was only 80 cents. “Daddy, I need my own Bible. Isn’t this one nice? Could I please have it, please?”
“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” he promised.
My desire was honest and sincere. But I suspect my foolish heart also thought Daddy should be very proud to have a child who wanted such a spiritual thing! Why, he might even upgrade the Bible to one of those big, gold-edged pages, leather-bound, “India paper” Bibles that actually had colored pictures!
At home, he took me to the kitchen and took down an empty pint Mason canning jar. I watched him bore a slot in the lid, then carefully screw the lid back on the jar. He handed it to me. “Now you’re all set! When you get a penny, you can put it in that slot into the jar. When you have saved 80 pennies, you can buy your Bible. And—” reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a penny, “—and here’s your first penny.”
I begged for chores to earn pennies. I waved my jar expectantly in front of surprised guests in our home. I watched for lost coins. At last I had my 80 pennies, and received a Bible I treasured so much more because I’d had to wait and work for it. In medieval days, copies of God’s Word were so expensive and rare, they were actually chained to the church pulpit. Yet now I had a copy all my own.
Psalm 119:111 (nlt) says, “Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight.”
That 80-cent Bible became my treasure, my heart’s delight. It was my counselor, teaching me how to make wise choices. It was my refuge when I was frightened. It was my great comforter as it taught me of God’s unending pity and love. Psalm 1:1-2 became my litany of hope and assurance:
Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked . . .
But they delight in the law of the LORD,
meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do.
Imagine! All that became mine with only 80 small copper coins in an old Mason jar. Now, God’s Word is even more accessible by phone, a Kindle, or an I-pad. What should possibly hinder our daily delight in such a treasure?