My New, Pretty, Grown Up Mom Bible

When my 10 year old son was just an itty bitty baby, I decided I was tired of feeling like a pack animal.

Between the baby carrier and the big diaper bag, the two year old and the five year old, I didn’t want to heft around my purse, too.

I decided to carry everything in the diaper bag, and so I switched to a bigger wallet, and a smaller Bible.

I scraped some money together and bought myself a beautiful little ESV pocket Bible. It was soft, and pretty, and mostly it was compact and perfect. I could tuck it in a little pocket in the diaper bag without adding much weight or taking up much space.

I have loved that little Bible. I have used it quite a bit over the years. The edges are worn, the imitation leather is peeling in some places.

There’s a little pen scribble on the first page that I’m pretty sure was added by a toddler and not myself, and the last page of the concordance has been ripped out. The back fourth of the Bible has been wet, you can tell by the wrinkles in the pages that something spilled where the Bible was resting (another toddler incident.)

I have underlined and highlighted a good many things, and this compact, easily portable Bible, has served me well.

But I am no longer a Mom of Littles.

In November, my “little” one turned ten! He’s so, so, big now. In March and April, my girls turned 13 and 16. All three of my kids are in double digits, hitting major age milestones, back to back. And while I could easily continue using this Bible, with it’s tiny-little-6-point-font, I am also at a place in my life where I can switch it out for a bigger Bible. I haven’t been “Pack Mule” mom for a while. I am “Carry My Own Stuff” mom!

And so I did.

My lovely new grown up mom Bible, with it’s slightly larger 8-pt font, is an ESV, cloth-over-board, single column, Personal Reference Bible, in a beautiful blue/green damask design.

I love it.

This is my first time to own a cloth-over-board Bible, and I was skeptical at first, but it’s really quite nice. It lays flat and nice on the desk or table so I keep it open during study without a problem.

And it’s also my first time to have a single column text – which is kind of weird because in my brain, “Bible=two columns.” But it’s also kind of “normal,” because we normally read in single columns, so why not? It didn’t take long for my brain to adjust.

I don’t want to minimize the beauty and wonder of the younger years, with the chubby cheeks and the wet kisses and the belly giggles. But you know, there are some pretty hard things about those years, too, as my little compact Bible can tell you. The wear and tear, the scribbles, and the spills, give testimony to the struggles of mothering littles.

But there are some pretty **great** things about these big-kid-years, too! Independent kids who not only feed and dress themselves–and carry their own stuff–also think their own thoughts and questions. The late night conversations, the hard discussions, the grown-up laughing. . . all part of watching the hearts and minds grow in these teens and tweens. This new Bible will undoubtedly see a lot of use during this phase of motherhood as well.

In my brain, I’ve been accepting this transition over the past few months, that there has been a definite closing of one chapter and beginning of another. In a way, this Bible represents this new chapter. And this is going to be a GREAT chapter. I mean, I LOVE teenagers. I really do!!

So here I am ready for this next phase, feeling like a grown-up Mom, with my grown-up Mom Bible in hand. Let’s do this.

P.S. For those of you who are wondering: This Bible can be found on Amazon and Christianbook, and it is neither as green as the picture on Amazon, nor as blue as the picture on Christianbook, but somewhere in between. My planner is Erin Condren, and my pens are Frixion. =)