Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: BOOK(S) - Begins January 4 / Ends January 11 (01/04/18)
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TITLE: The Legacy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Trudy Newell
01/10/18 -
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Grandpa’s Bible lay in the top drawer of my nightstand like a good luck charm. Not that I believed the Bible was true. At 13 a science teacher destroyed any remnants of faith I had in the Bible.
My roommate, Chris, caught me peeking into the drawer and looking at the well-worn Bible.
He punched my arm and asked, “Hey, Keith, what’s that?”
I felt the blood rush to my face as I answered. “Oh, this? It’s my grandpa’s Bible. He gave it to me when he died two years ago.”
I paused and added. “It’s a bunch of fairy tales, but I loved my grandpa.”
The phone in the hall rang and ended our conversation. Chris rushed to answer it.
“Keith.”
It was my mom.
“Hey, mom.”
“Just want to know if you’re coming home this weekend.”
“I think so, need to do laundry. You know the funky machines in the basement.”
Even now I can visualize the coin-operated phone in the dorm hall, and the coin-operated washer and dryer in the dorm basement. Like all the kids, I only did laundry in desperation. As I think about it, I’m not sure college life has changed all that much. The kids still bring their laundry home!
But back to my story.
Mom chuckled. “You mean you want me to do the laundry.”
“If you don’t mind, mom.”
“I might have known it was your laundry that was calling you home!”
There was a pause.
“Oh, by the way, a Southern Gospel quartet will be there in the morning, and there’s a church dinner following.”
I frowned. Sure, I’d do the church thing. I loved my family and wouldn’t hurt them for the world. But how much Southern Gospel could I take!
After lunch Chris headed for his 1 pm English Lit. The dorm was quiet, and I was bored out of my head. I almost headed home early. I would have, if it wasn’t for lab work to be done Friday morning. I was into science, and planned to be an archeologist. Even dad and mom would think that was cool.
I had not told my folks that I no longer believed the Bible. But they weren’t dumb, and figured that I considered all that they had taught me to be fiction rather than fact. I hated this. But I had a hard time not laughing right in the middle of church when some of the miracles were taught as truth.
Grandpa Pete had been unmovable when it came to his fundamental beliefs about the Bible. I couldn’t help but respect his faith and admire his strong stand. Yet it puzzled me, he was so flexible and so much fun in other ways.
With nothing to do, I did what I had not done in two years. I took out Grandpa’s Bible from the drawer and flipped through it.
“Grandpa must have used this all the time, and he sure wasn’t a preacher!” It was marked in his clear handwriting. Many verses were underlined.
As I opened the Bible to Psalm 23, one of many I had learned as a child, there sticking up between the folds of the page was a $100 bill. Wow, where did that come from! I flipped through the Bible, and more $100 bills came popping up. I was astounded. I didn’t know Grandpa Pete had money. Those $100 bills sure helped pay for my college education.
Twenty-five years later it isn’t so much the $100 bills I remember, but how God opened my eyes that afternoon. The miracle of rebirth took place, and that’s as great a miracle as any of the wonderful things God did in Bible times.
I remembered what Grandpa Pete told me when he gave me the Bible. “Keith, this is the greatest treasure I could give you. If you live by it, it will keep you from sin. If you read it, you’ll find all kinds of treasure within.”
Oh, my love for science never left. Today I am an archeologist, just like I planned. The difference is now I do it God’s way. The discoveries I make are ones that show how the Bible is true, and the events of scripture real.
I shake my head and wonder, “I was a pretty smart kid. How could I have been so stupid not to see the Bible was true”
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So glad you found out early. praying for my scientist daughter to see the light.
Good story kept my interest.
Judy
It is a nice story though.