From the Vault: "Bibleholic"

previously posted on Facebook in January 2014

I repost this from time to time. Sometimes someone will ask for it, and other times I think I just enjoy the sound of my own voice in my head... but anyway, for the New Year and to encourage all of our annual reading schedules and whatnot, I give you "The Bibleholic Testimony".

Hi, my name is Kim, and I’m a Bibleholic. I have become completely addicted to reading my Bible every day.

My Bible reading habit started out innocently, years ago. I would just read the Bible socially, usually if I was out with friends on Sunday morning. At first I think I was only reading a little bit so that I would feel like I fit in with the crowd, but of course I kept at it and eventually got a taste for it myself. I could see others around me who didn’t seem to need their Bible and could put it aside on a whim, but soon I realized that I could not stop by myself. I needed that Bible, more and more. Now I read the Bible daily and usually when I am alone.

Even on my “good” days, I wake up and reach for my Bible first thing. The day can’t really start without getting in that first couple of verses; without that, I don’t feel like I can function. On “bad” days, I go back to the Bible over and over and over. I have developed a 3- or 4-chapter a day habit, and at this rate I’ll probably go through the whole thing in just a year – even as I write that, I have to be honest and admit that even that won’t feel like “enough” and I’ll still keep going back for more. I have my favorite Bible, of course, and I don’t even hide it around the house anymore; it’s right out in the open, I’m almost defiant about it. But I also have a couple secret stashes, including a small book of Psalms and the New Testament hidden away in my purse, just in case.

I’ve heard that the true mark of addiction is when you see your personality change because of the stuff, and I know that’s happening to me. Seems like the more I read my Bible, the more different I get, and people who knew me years ago barely recognize my current behavior. I act different, I sound different, and I even look different. I don’t have much interest in what seemed like fun back then, before I developed my Bible addiction. Seems like everything I want to do now, and any of the people that I want to spend time with, are all related to that Bible. Most of my old friends gave up and stopped calling a long time ago when they realized I was going to put the Bible first over them.

Of course no one wants to be alone all the time, and I found myself deliberately choosing to spend my time with other people who are just as into their Bible as I was getting into mine. I guess we enable each other because nobody is talking about quitting! And as long as I’m being completely honest here, I better admit that I have encouraged a lot of other people to read the Bible themselves. Even children. Yes, I have actually given Bibles to my own children, while they were still too young to really choose for themselves. And not watered-down kiddie versions, either – I gave my kids the full KJV, the real deal.

So this is how I’m living today, a full-blown Bibleholic. I know the trend today is to say everybody is a victim but I have to admit that I chose this, knowing full well what I was ultimately getting into. And I am not interested in any worldly “interventions” that might “cure” me of any of this. On the day I die and go to Heaven, I want everyone who knows me to say, “We knew this would happen – she just wouldn’t put that Bible down.”

~ 30 ~