THE BOOK by Pamela McCormick
After my mother’s funeral, my sister boxed up many of our mother’s things and asked me to look through each box and see if there was anything that I wanted. I saw something that I had never seen in her room before, and yet, it definitely belonged to my mom. A friend had given it to her, probably when she needed it most. The title on the small paperback was The Bible Promise Book. I had been grieving the loss of my mother and needed something tangible to hold onto until I was okay. When do you stop missing your mom? I still miss her today, and yet I have the confidence that she is in Heaven, and I will see her again one day. I tucked the book inside my purse and waited as we cleared the apartment of her belongings, one by one. Ironically, I took many things from her apartment (clothes, other books, ornaments, etc), in some way hoping that by holding onto those things that belonged to her, I would have her with me always.
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I realized that the things I had taken were just that, things, and so I donated many items to a thrift store or gave them away. For some reason, the little paperback book had more value than all the other things I gathered, and I kept it in my purse, somehow thinking I had a pearl of great value, not realizing that I truly did. Some might say it was just a book, but to me, it was a book that I would one day pass down to my children, so that whenever they needed to remember God’s Promises to us, that they would have it to read or carry with them as well. Many years passed. I was so proud of my little book. Although I didn’t open it much, I still knew that God’s Promises were true, and I carried it more like a security blanket like Linus did in the Peanuts’ cartoon series. One day, I went to a convenience store to buy a lottery ticket. As I left the store and got back into my car, there was a tug on my heart that I could not explain, and yet I waited, got still, and listened. God wanted me to give my little book to the owners inside.
