They have become almost like white noise to many. My own eyes assimilate their presence without true difference, so I am all too often guilty, myself.

Then that moment when you find one lying around, seemingly innocuous and common place: Hotel rooms, dollar stores, garage sales, coffee shops, the free bin outside the door of a local business;

When suddenly you can see the kingdoms rise and fall, the sun stopped in its natural course by the voice that formed it in the very beginning. You can taste the bread from Heaven, and the weariness of wandering through landscapes void of promise. The surge of the heart as cities are lost, but holiness is remembered, and a people wait for the redemption of their souls through centuries.

A king is born, the wise are made foolish, and the law comes to fruition. Love ravishes a world suffocating in darkness.

Words of sweet prophecy are fed to a man, and eyes turn heavenward to watch for the thief in the night. A bridegroom comes and receives the ready bride, making her perfect. Vast fields of golden wheat mature and wither in the ground, waiting on a harvester. Many sons are called into glory.

The light is passed from generation to generation, hand to hand, crossing borders and cultures. The more severe the opposition the brighter and truer it grows.

So sometimes I pick it up, and I feel the weight of it. Sometimes I hold it for a while in my hands, a thing I have done nearly every day for the past ten years, and I remember what it is, and what it’s been through. Reading it out loud to myself, I can form the words of Solomon and Paul with my own tongue, and the Spirit inside of me stirs to the message it itself inspired so long ago.

And I take courage. I take heart.