A Bible Story

When we were kids, our parents had a big, grayish-blue Bible with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the front.  It sat on a shelf on the end table in the living room.  My sisters and I loved to look through that Bible. There were colored pages inside, which you never found in a Bible.  Pictures of the Vatican and a priest saying mass.  There was a section of Old Testament stories with a classical painting to match.  Daniel in the lion's den, Sampson, and my sisters' and my favorite: King Solomon and the 2 women claiming the same baby.  The picture was dramatic.  King Solomon sitting on a throne while a large, buff man holds a baby upside down by an ankle, preparing to cut him in half with a sword...I was always fascinated by that picture.  

The New Testament had a section, and I loved the painting of young Jesus at the Temple.  He looked so angelic with the halo behind his head.

 

The Stations of the Cross were also in color, one page ripped in half diagonally.  I don't remember it ever being taped back, just tucked into the place where it went.

We never read the Bible.  There were pages for recording births and deaths, and when I got older, I wanted to put our names in it, but my mom wouldn't let me.  I guess it was more of a decoration than anything, but that Bible was in the living room on the end table shelf for as long as I can remember.

When Dad died in 2011, my sisters and I divided up his belongings, and I didn't end up with the Bible.  We had all loved it, so wherever it went was fine.  I didn't really think about it much after that, and time went on.

Fast forward to 2020.  That summer, I was volunteering with Produce and More, giving out books in the West End of Louisville.  People would donate children's books for me to pass on, and sometimes I'd get a cash donation from someone who wanted to help but didn't have any books to give me.  On those occasions, I'd go to the Goodwill to look in their book section as I could get children's books for .50-$1 each.

One day when I was there looking for books, I saw a Bible that looked exactly like the one we had growing up.  I thought, "Oh wow!  That's just like the one we had!" I thought about buying it, but then thought it would be silly to buy it since it hadn't been ours; it just looked like ours.  Then I thought, "No, if you don't get it, you'll be sorry," so I bought it for $2 and brought it home and put it under the coffee table as an homage to my parents.  

The Bible has sat on the shelf under the coffee table in my living room for almost three years.  Today, I decided to do a little rearranging and deep cleaning.  Instead of dusting around the books on the coffee table shelf (Shhh.  Don't tell anyone I do that!), I took them all out and wiped them down.  

When I pulled out the Bible, I thought about the picture of King Solomon and opened it up to the page to have a look.  Being the historian/genealogist I am, I wondered who had owned this Bible before, so I turned the pages to see if anyones' names were written down.  I thought if there were, I might reach out to see if they would want the Bible back.  The genealogy section was blank.  I looked in the front...nothing but a small, blank piece of paper.  I flipped through the pages, and at the very back of the book, tucked in between two pages, was a yellowed sheet of paper.  "Hmmmm," I thought, "I wonder if this will tell me who this belonged to."

I unfolded the paper and saw that it was a telegram. "Western Union" blazed across the top of the page.  I read on..."WLT LUCKETT FOR FITZPATRICK..." 

Wait.  What?  That's where my grandpa worked.  That's our last name...

"TELEGRAM RECEIVED ONLY TODAY HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS HOPE HENRIETTE BABY FINE WIRING PARENTS LOVE ALBERT...

What the heck???  Henriette was my grandma.  Albert was her brother.  I looked at the date on the telegram...March 5, 1932.  My dad was born in 1932...February 18, 1932...91 years ago TODAY.

I looked at the Bible in disbelief.  Did someone in my family have the same Bible and took it to the Goodwill, and I found it?  Was this ours???  I knew how to check.  I turned to the page in the Stations of the Cross section, and there it was, the torn page, now taped back together, but torn just as I remembered it.  

This was my mom and dad's Bible.

But how had it ended up at the Goodwill???

I called my sisters.  We all thought each other had the Bible.  None of us had seen it for years, but I thought Colleen or Jennifer had it, and they thought I had it.  We have no idea how it left our possession and ended up at the Goodwill.  None of us would have given it away.  The only thing we can think of is that it was put in a box and inadvertently given to the Goodwill.  But then had it sat there on the shelves for nine years before I found it?  Did someone else have it and drop it off?  Where had it been all that time???

We have no idea exactly what happened, but somehow, our family Bible wound up at the Goodwill and NINE YEARS after my dad's death, I found it and decided to buy it not knowing it was ours and put it on the shelf of my coffee table where it sat, unopened, until today.

And then today, on my dad's 91st birthday, I opened it up to see who it might have belonged to and found the telegram congratulating my grandparents on his birth.  I can't make this make sense except to say...

The universe is full of miracles!