Important Keepsakes

I’ll never forget how excited I was to be buying my class ring when I was a junior at Vinita High School. I saved up my tips and paychecks from waitressing until I had the $25 it took to order one. There were no choices—you either bought a girl’s class ring or a boy’s. The Vinita Hornet blue was the color of the stone and it was rounded on top and oval shaped. On the sides were your initials and the class graduation year. My ring disappeared in the summer of 1968 and was never seen again. Someone probably pawned it.
I also bought a yearbook every year. I paid for my own yearbooks from 7th grade through my Senior year. Still have all those.
I have all the Bibles I have ever owned too. Mom gave me a Bible when I was baptized at age 9, a white leather Bible where I wrote my Baptism date and other important information I wanted to remember. She gave me one when I was in about 8th grade and another when I graduated high school along with a second-hand sewing machine.
In 1988, during church my good friend Nancy wrote me a note suggesting that I needed a new Bible since I was still using the one Mom got me in 1967. Of course, there were quite a few years in between when I didn’t use it very much, but after I rededicated my life to the Lord in 1977, I started reading my Bible every day and writing notes in a notebook that I kept. I also still have all those notebooks, year after year, where I wrote all the verses I studied and what God had shown me through those verses.
Maybe you all aren’t quite as sentimental as I am, but there are just some things that are important to keep. Now and then someone talks about giving your old Bibles to the poor in Africa, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep mine and give you some money to buy those poor people their own new Bible.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105 KJV.