I was in kindergarten the first time I memorized a Bible verse. In 1986, I lived in Memphis, and my parents had enrolled me in a small Christian school. The curriculum required all kindergarteners, even the half-dayers like me, to learn Psalm 23. In the King James Version, of course. I might have struggled with “maketh” and “leadeth” but the sponge that is a five-year-old brain has no trouble absorbing long lines of text in order, even if the owner of the sponge can’t yet read. From a young age, I pictured Jesus on a hillside, surrounded by sheep. I wouldn’t have known the word metaphor, but on some level I knew I was a sheep. Or at least a lamb. That didn’t seem so bad to me.
We were living with my grandparents that year because my mom had a spinal injury that meant she couldn’t walk. My paternal grandfather took me to school every day, and my maternal grandfather picked me up. I spent my afternoons alone in my parents’ bedroom watching “My Little Pony” on TV and eating chips quietly while my baby sister napped. My older brother was in second grade, attending school all day before he came back to the blue bedroom we shared at my grandparents’ house.
The next year, my parents moved our family an hour east to Jackson, a small city I called home for eighteen years. At our new church, my parents signed me up for Bible Drill, a program designed to teach young children to memorize the books of the Bible in order, back to front and front to back—a skill I am still grateful for today. We also learned about twenty verses of Scripture. I mastered it all by age six, but the real reason I excelled was the tantalizing promise of earning a comic book version of the Bible when I could recite all 66 books of the Bible as well as all the required Scripture passages. Our group of little scholars were given church t-shirts and made to travel to other churches in our area and compete with kids our age. I was in Bible Drill throughout all of elementary school. In retrospect, it is really weird that we did this. For better or worse, I honestly can’t imagine making my kids do this today.
Somewhere after the fourth grade, I outgrew the discipline of Scripture memorization. It’s for kids, after all, and I was heading towards middle school. I didn’t work on memorization again for thirty years.
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In my mid-thirties, I began to see a besetting sin take hold in my life. I was parenting young kids, volunteering at church for everything as the pastor’s wife, teaching dozens of piano lessons each week to help make ends meet, and trying to get my writing career out of hobby mode. And I was angry all the time. I took my kids’ disobedience personally, became exasperated with church members who weren’t faithful or dependable, and had little patience for piano students who claimed to be so busy at age nine that they couldn’t practice ten measly minutes a day.
Beneath the surface, anger bubbled with frightening intensity. What I would have given for a week alone in my house without another human to bother me! The demands of motherhood, work, and ministry were sanctifying tools that God used to reveal an ugliness in me that I had not previously been aware of. The anger simmered, bursting out in little bubbles of sarcasm or complaining or sharp remarks. And when I couldn’t take it anymore, the anger boiled over in ugly, tearful meltdowns that proved I believed the world revolved around me. Gosh, it was ugly.
Thus began a cycle I clung to for years: simmer, boil over, feel awful, apologize to my family, confess to the Lord, repent. Repeat, repeat, repeat. It was a pattern I couldn’t break, no matter how much I prayed. And I hated myself with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. The self-loathing fed the anger, and I felt trapped—suffocated by my own disappointment with myself.
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One day, I sat with my Bible in my lap and prayed about this anger issue. It’s hard to know which day it was, for this pattern had been so often repeated. But, in the midst of my praying, I had a clear, visual memory of Bible Drill. I could see myself on a church platform in my navy church t-shirt tucked into my navy skirt with the wide waist band and gold anchor buttons. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. One of those long-buried verses climbed its way out of the folds of my brain and crystallized in meaning for the first time. If I hide Scripture in my heart, then maybe I won’t sin in anger. I had studied Scripture well enough to know that no formula would save me, but there’s something there, I thought.
How can a young mom keep her way pure? How can she protect her heart from sin? By guarding it according to God’s Word. By meditating on His precepts and fixing her eyes on His ways.
I grabbed a piece of copy paper and a purple sharpie, flipping my Bible open to Psalm 46. In large purple letters, I copied the chapter and slid the paper into an upside-down Ziploc bag. I taped the bag to my shower wall and began memorizing it one phrase at a time for a few minutes each day while I showered. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. In a week or two, I printed off James 1 and added it to my shower baggies. It took a couple of months, but I memorized the chapter. I spent the rest of that year memorizing the rest of James. Then Colossians. Then 1 Peter. More Psalms. On to Hebrews. As I worked through the phrases of God’s holy Word, something happened to me. The anger started shrinking. It wasn’t gone completely, of course, for I am as human as the day is long, but the hold, the grip, the red, foaming control began to weaken considerably. One day I realized I wasn’t angry all the time. Nothing in my life had changed, but I had. The simmer-to-a-rolling-boil part of my life had evaporated.
It wasn’t a formula, of course. Memorize this and stop doing that. That’s not how it happened. It happened slowly, in time, in ways I didn’t expect. The words of Scripture went deep and began to work on my heart like sandpaper and rough edges. Like river water rushing over stones. Like sea glass tumbled around by the waves and sand. I was being transformed by the renewal of my mind, and who knew that mind renewal could involve a Ziploc bag and a shower?
It wasn’t just anger. It was decision making and discernment. It was conscience. I stopped watching certain shows and movies, quit reading certain kinds of books, abandoned an entire genre of music. Things that had entertained me or made me laugh now brought a flush of embarrassment to my cheeks. Did I really think that was funny? Okay? Acceptable? I began to feel out of place in the world but in a way that felt so incredibly right as a follower of Jesus. The practice of my childhood took over my adult life. God’s Word wasn’t just a fence around my heart, protecting me from anger. It was a fortress.
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Beth
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
Psalm 119:9-16
Author’s note:
This is the second essay in a series of reflections on Psalm 119. Each article bears the title of the stanza of the psalm from which it draws inspiration. This is 2 of 22. (Additionally, I’ve written an entire book on Scripture memorization.)
