5 Year Mem-aversary

I am in awe of all that God has done in my heart over the past half decade. I could not have fathomed 5 years ago that I would still be here today. Here I raise my "Ebenezer stone" of remembrance. This post is not a brag, it is in hopes of giving encouragement to those who are just where I was five years ago today, on day two of a journey I was doubtfully and trepidationsly dipping my toes into, asking God if any memorization could actually even be feasible for me with my brain injuries and decimated memory. To God be ALL the glory!

Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen,
and he named it Ebenezer. And he said,
“Thus far Yahweh has helped us.”
- 1 Samuel 7:12

This is NOT a race! As I was reminded this morning when i was lamenting over how I'm not managing to get verses to stick well this month, we all go through ups and downs in the journey, but keep at it and your overall trajectory will grow! 

After watching Susan Heck's video, A Call to Scripture Memory, on December 10, 2020, my first 25 verses of Scripture took me 5 months of daily consistent push (I knew no techniques beyond rote repetition) to learn. My prayer had been to learn “as much of the book of Jude (25 verses) as possible by January 1, 2022" (so, within about 12 1/2 months). When I was stunned that God allowed me to accomplished that whole goal in less than half of my planned time, i dropped most of my effort and just dabbled in memorization sporadically for the next several months. When I got utterly stuck in 1 John chapter 2, I nearly gave up on memorization all together!

Then I started learning some memory techniques from Josh Summer’s videos, and eventually gave the Bible Memory Goal (BMG) community a try, before I started seeing some encouraging progress again. It took me about 2 years before one of the quarterly BMG memory challenge events finally helped me to move memorization from a few times weekly, to daily. Now my days are not complete without at least a few minutes in God’s word each day!

For those who like stats, here are some details of my personal journey. I have learned (but not retained it all!) at least 24 chapters (often in the 20-30ish verse range, but ranging from as short as 6 verses, to as long as 51 and 60 verses) along with a handful of other partial-chapter passages (often around 12-18 verses) over the past five years. While i have not been great at record keeping along the way, i know that I have at least walked through Jude, 1 John, 1 Peter, 2 John, a few shorter Psalms, James, the first 5 chapters of the Gospel of John, and four Christmas passages (John 1:1-14, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-20).

I am currently working on Matthew 2, but in the past mentally-taxing month have only managed to retain about 5-6 verses in total, even though I have been fairly faithful in my daily practice attempts. (It is amazing to me that a pace that felt like a marathon five years ago - 25 verses in 5 months meant an average of 5 verses per month - now feels like a discouraging "only" pace, when my memory muscle has stretched to typically average at least 5 verses per week now!) My favorite quote I've learned at BMG is that a “bad day” of Bible memory work is far better than no day of memory work. We must keep filling our minds and hearts with His word, then trust Him with the outcome!

I look forward to continuing in John next year.

All Scripture on this post is quoted from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB).
Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

I would love to meet you through social media:


Specialty pages:
    infertility / loss - fb.com/HannahsHopeBook
    stroke - fb.com/StrokieGal
    current book project on church deception - fb.com/DeceptionUnmasked

SubStack @InfertilityMom (just started this one, so not much there yet)
Instagram @InfertilityMom
Pinterest @InfertilityMom

My books:

Read about my current book project about deceptions women face from within the church, at JenniferSaake.blogspot.com/2021/04/DeceptionUnmasked.html


Read more about infertility, miscarriage, adoption loss, and my first book, Hannah's Hope (written pre-stroke), at JenniferSaake.blogspot.com/2021/04/hannahs.html

 
Please enjoy a free pdf version of the introduction, my personal infertility / loss story, and the first chapter of Hannah's Hope at www.hannahshopebook.com/media/HannahHopeChapter1.pdf


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