My Most Precious Gift

I went to my safe deposit box in Charlottesville yesterday, to retrieve the things that had been stored there while I traveled. The contents were telling--vital documents (the main reason I went), some things of my father's, gifts for a girl who didn't love me, and this.

This was the first thing that was ever given to me--as you can see from the inscription, given on the day I was born. The Word of God. A prophetic gift indeed.

I never met Pastor Wesberry within my memory, nor have I ever visited Morningside Baptist Church (though I love the name). But as I sat here at the end of my devotions-and-coffee this morning and picked up this little New Testament, I realized that he set me on a path the day I was born, and that I wanted to thank him one day for that in Heaven. I used, as a very small child before I even learned to read, to sit and hold this lovingly, and gaze at the one picture inside--appropriately enough, the Adoration of the Magi. 

I wonder now how much of my taste and preference was formed before I was even fully aware. From the very Anglican title page to the Authorized Version and the pictures of the church I attended as an infant with my parents, I'd say that they were setting me well on the path to becoming an Anglican.

Baptistism is, after all, just stripped-down Anglicanism, as is also evident in the Hymnal--one of the reasons I love the Anglican liturgy so much: it combines the sublimely beautiful high-church classical music with the old-time hymns that are closest to my heart. 

What is certain, however, is that this gift somehow created for me, in my deepest heart, a love for the Word of God and therethrough for God Himself, that has defined my entire life, and will define my eternity. So, thank you, Pastor Wesberry.