Using the Bible for Daily Devotions
by Eugenia Gamble

When I was a senior in college I became seriously ill. I was admitted to the hospital’s subintensive care unit with blood clots in my lungs. I don’t remember much about that long first night in the hospital except that I was in terrible shape. My roommate was frantic. When she asked me what I needed, all I asked for was my old Bible, the one I had been given as a rite of passage in Sunday school. In the wee hours of that morning, I remember lying in bed, hooked up to everything imaginable. I was told to move as little as possible. I watched the lights blink on one of the machines and rubbed my thumb across the gold-embossed cross on the old leather cover of the Bible. Down and across. Down and across.

Weeks later when I was released to begin the long process of recovering my strength, I wanted to carry the Bible in my lap, in my wheelchair. That was all I knew to do. I somehow sensed that the Bible would be my longtime companion in whatever life brought. But I had no idea how to use it.

Get Eugenia’s suggestions for using the Bible devotionally, and developing a rich relationship with scripture.

Call 800/524-2612 or subscribe to Horizons or order the May/June 2007 issue (HZN-07-220; $4 plus shipping).

Eugenia Gamble is the author of the 1995–1996 Horizons Bible study, Glimpses of Home: Biblical Images in the Realm of God.

Photo by Tamara Reynolds/Getty Images

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