Bookmark or Book Stuck?
Who knew a bookmark could be such a disaster?
This has been a challenging and humbling season of life. Thanks to good counselors, coaches, and friends, I have been forced to look at my emotional health through a much more powerful lens. Years ago, I read the book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero and found it helpful in taking positive next steps in my walk with Jesus and my emotional strength. Last week, it occurred to me that another trip through the book would likely be helpful now.
So I pulled it off the shelf. The first thing I noticed was that there was already paper I had left behind as a bookmark. Perfect, as soon as I finish reading chapter 1, I’ll use that slip of paper. Chapter one drew to a close and I reached for the paper. I pulled the paper. The paper didn’t budge. I opened the book to the location of this stubborn piece of wood fiber and it still wouldn’t move. I took in the next details quickly.
Over the past years, the book has experienced some moisture exposure. The pages are just slightly wavy in the way a damp environment (like the trunk of my car) might produce. The piece of paper was no ordinary piece of paper. It was the flap of an envelope. That’s right, Shaun Hart, a college graduate, used an envelope flap as a bookmark while living in the Pacific Northwest where everything eventually gets wet.
The bookmark was glued straight to the page. No way to separate one from the other without removing part of the book. Guess I’m working around that one.
Somehow the glued bookmark made me think. Maybe because I’m wrestling my own emotional health the irony of a stuck marker in a book on the topic is striking a chord.
Maybe you share this issue too. That one conversation that went sideways. The whispered promise, “I’ll never be like my parents”. Those words spoken by a teacher which defined a school year. Bookmarks that were meant to hold your place until you were ready to keep reading, turned into a part of the book. Page 104, forever changed by an envelope flap.
But we weren’t meant to live that way. In fact, Jesus died so that we wouldn’t.
For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 CSB
Interestingly, page 104 shares the reminder that in Christ we are being remade into something new. That our experiences, families of origin, and choices thus far are all simply the place Jesus begins from. That in real discipleship, we not only learn to know God better, but we get to find that person who God made us to be.
I’m not sure we ever get rid of those bookmarks. But as I look at the one on page 104, I realize there are some areas I could tear off pretty easily. There are other spots that if I am careful, I should be able to remove with minimal damage to the page. In my life, I’ll always be finding pages where a stuck bookmark has done some damage. But as I lean into Jesus, I’m finding more and more how good he is at making every page new.
I don’t think I’ll try to fix that page. I can read well enough around the marker. I’m thankful today that God won’t do the same with me. He continues to make me new, continues to draw me closer to Jesus. Continues to show me who I was, who I am, and who he is leading me to be. Marked, but not stuck.