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One summer when I was a preteen, near-sighted, and ill-at-ease in the greater world, a neighbor gave me a box of books.

She had kept them wonderfully preserved from her own preteen years and, knowing my love of reading, passed them on to me. Among the books was a series set in World War II about a nurse.

Not being acquainted with Cherry Ames, I eagerly selected the first of the series and began to read. She was lovely: “She moved with a proud erect posture that made her seem beautifully tall and slim.” I instantly wanted to be her. The details of her training enthralled me, as did the difficulties she overcame with such grace and good sense. Plus, she solved mysteries.

My great pleasure that Cherry Ames summer was to sit in the recliner during the hot afternoons of our northern California town with a can of almonds propped on the arm of the chair. I would blissfully disappear into the stories while munching away. I devoured the books one after the other, and soon I, too, wanted to be a nurse.

As it turned out, I didn’t become a nurse, but the verse from Jeremiah came to mind as I remembered those days. Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

The Cherry Ames series, along with other treasured books of those years, rests in a box in my garage. They are portals to childhood pleasure, and I cannot give them up. But on my desk, waiting each morning, is the Book, and its treasures and pleasures will never be stored away, except in my heart.

Sitting at my desk in the early morning with my One-Year Bible, I experience that same sense of anticipation. Heroes, villains, individual struggle, and sweeping drama. And in the grand arc of God’s Word, I find precious and ever-challenging truths. They inspire me to want to be like the Savior. His Word is the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

How can you treasure God’s Word?

(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)

(For more devotions, visit Christian Devotions.)