That Little Book

The man with a cardboard box handed me the small New Testament. It was in front of the University of Idaho library. I didn't know it, but he was with an organization called the Gideon's.

That little book wound up in a drawer in my apartment.

Later, on a night when I’d been drinking and was feeling melancholy, I thought about that little book, the New Testament with the Psalms and Proverbs. 

I got it out and laid down on my bed. I remember opening it and noticing a leathery smell. I’d never read it. I thought, “okay, so what are you all about?”

I started at the beginning at Matthew, Chapter 1. The "King James" version I read began with a list of archaic names. “What is this?” I thought.

Somehow I kept going. I read three chapters. Then I went to sleep.

The next night I read three more chapters.

And the next.

What I read about Jesus amazed me. The things he did. Once an angry crowd took him to a cliff to throw him down and “going his way, he walked through the midst of them.” How did he do that?

I began to experience a phenomenon when I read that little book. As I lay there thinking about the words, I would feel a peace, inside my chest. 

It was curious that reading made me feel that way.

Over time my life changed and my path was formed through reading that little book. - Mike