Pastor Geitra received the following reflection from Wes Albers after Sunday's sermon.  We thought many of you would appreciate reading this, so we asked for his permission to share it:

I've been thinking about something you said in last Sunday's sermon, "Standing on the Promises," one two-word phrase that jumped out at me then and I can't let go of:

"I wonder about your Bible. If you had to assign a price to it, what would it be?"

Your Bible. Meaning MY Bible.

I have to begin by admitting that I haven't been reading a Bible here at home. When you said "your Bible," I thought, "Yes, a Christian should have a personal Bible, shouldn't they? Which one is mine?" I could think of two that I knew were in the house, and I've found three others since Sunday. But which one is MINE?

Is it the white zippered Bible that my wife's father gave her in 1960 and which I found while going through her things after her death on Dec. 20, 2022? Reading that one would certainly have special meaning for me.

Or is it the black zippered Bible my parents gave me for Christmas 1960, the one with my name in gold leaf on the front?

Or the little New Testament I was given after Vacation Bible School in 1961?

Or the Bible I was given on Boy Scout Sunday in 1966 when my family lived on an Army base in Stuttgart, Germany, a place I associate with the "core" of my childhood?

Or perhaps it is the very large Family Reference Bible that my sister gave my wife and I as a wedding present in 1979. This is a Bible that makes me smile. My sister and her husband tucked a $20 bill in between two pages and waited for us to find it and thank them. On our first wedding anniversary, they called to ask if we had been reading that Bible. Odd question. Why would they ask that? Then they suggested we read a particular verse while they were on the phone -- and that led us to the $20 bill! Now the kicker to this story is that they put TWO $20 bills in that Bible -- and on our second anniversary asked if we had been reading the Bible! You guessed it. Another $20! I became a very faithful reader of THAT Bible for a while after that, without further monetary remuneration unfortunately.

And it isn't lost on me that all the Bibles I have were gifts. I didn't seek them out. They found me. That's going to send me down another rabbit hole!

So, having spent my career as a journalist, I know what it is like to put something out there and have no one respond, to wonder if they read what I wrote, thought about I said. This is just a midweek note to let you know that TWO WORDS in one of your sermons -- "your Bible" -- can spur days of thought. Thank you.

I haven't decided which of these five Bibles will be MY Bible, but I intend to give each an audition.