Tell me how you did it!

I clicked “Buy Now” in the Amazon cart before pondering the implications. 

It’s not that I hadn’t done my research or that it was outside my budget. That wasn’t it at all! I had inspected the inside and lamented over the color options. When I had finally decided on one, I was delighted to see that it was even on sale! 

Yet, as I walked to pull the now “old one” out of my purse-the one I had just replaced-I pondered the question:

How do you transition to a new bible?

I flipped through the worn pages of my pink, imitation leather bound, NIV bible thinking about the nine years of life it has seen. 

It saw me through the birth of all three of my children, the loss of my brother, guest writing devotionals for my church, nine years of women’s bible studies, and the first time I was asked to speak for a women’s event. 

I have underlined and highlighted verses that bring me comfort, verses that remind me of who God is, verses that convict me and cause me to repent, and verses that I need to remember in moments of temptation.

I have searched its pages for answers to so many questions. There are sticky notes, scribbles, notes, bent corners, and bookmarks. 

So how can I use a new one?

Do I start from scratch in the new bible? Underlining new verses that take on new meaning? Do I create new post-its, new bookmarks, new notes?

Do I move all the old notes over? Gosh that would be an undertaking! I definitely don’t think I’ll do that.

Do I put the “old one” away and save it for Aislin? How special that would be!

Maybe this is something I should search for on the inter-webs. Someone has undoubtedly written a blog post or created a pin on Pinterest telling me the 5 things I need to do to transition to a new bible. You know I’m gonna have to go look for it now.

While I know my new bible will have the same God breathed scripture filling its pages, I’m still kinda sad about parting with my “old” one.

I know there are services that will rebind leather bibles just so you can keep your beloved pages and notes intact, but I needed a different version so that wouldn’t have worked this time.

I’m certain there are people out there who have done this before, probably more than once!

So please tell me, what did you do when you got a new bible?