FAIR SUNSHINE

We lost two weeks from sickness and the recent storm which swept thru the country almost unexpectedly that left a trail of devastation and week long floods. It was an open opportunity to remind the people how fragile this life is. The break felt long, too long, to sorely miss the brethren and labor with them. I became more desperate with the people in my plea for them to run to Christ, aware that there may be that one soul who will hear this message for the last time before his days expire and he awakens in eternity.    Proverbs 24:10-12 If you faint in the day of trouble, your strength is small! Deliver those being taken away to death, and hold back those slipping to the slaughter. If you say, “But we did not know about this,” does not the one who evaluates hearts consider? Does not the one who guards your life know? Will he not repay each person according to his deeds?

This priceless book was given to me by my beloved wife by the end of 2009. It has been raised countless times both inside our home and on the street. It has lots of notes pressed between specific passages. I thought it to be wise to preserve it while it is still (barely) in one piece, as it has already begun to fall apart. I remember coming home from my Samar trip thinking I had left it somewhere and had lost it, but when I did find it stashed at the bottom of my pack, I tightly embraced it and cried uncontrollably in gratitude that I still had it. The new bible that came is not the pure Cambridge version. It has two errors, but nothing that a quick write over cannot fix. I sorely miss my original 1611 with the dedicatory page and the translator's preface. I imagine this precious object outliving my days on earth, and perhaps being raised again by my children, or my children's children, in God's providence and due time.