We all like to be encouraged. One of the people who encourages me is my grandmother. This is a remarkable feat due to the fact that my grandmother passed away seventeen years ago. Let me explain how this blessing is taking place.

I always knew my grandmother believed in the power of prayer. Grandmother didn't think any request was too small to bring before the Lord. It would be years later however, before I learned just how deep her faith went.

After my father died, my brother and I were cleaning out his barn and came across a box that had some Bibles in it. I took the box of Bibles home to look them over and was surprised to see that they had belonged to my grandmother. When she died, the Bibles had been passed onto her son -- my father -- and now to me.

I picked one out and began looking through it. I was shocked at what I saw. Not only had my grandmother underlined certain portions of scripture, she had also written down poems, prayers, and special events in her Bible. As I read the things she'd written, I began to feel God using my grandmother to encourage me.

How did this happen? Sometimes the encouragement came from seeing that my grandmother had underlined the same Bible verses in her Bible that I had highlighted in mine. It brought a smile to my face to know that Grandma and I both shared the same affection over a certain piece of scripture.

Then there were the prayers she had written. Some were prayers asking God to protect her family and to make us desire to have a relationship with Him. Other prayers were of praise, speaking about the wonderful qualities of God and how she felt God had blessed her and taken care of her over the years.

Another aspect of encouragement came from knowing that some of the things she had underlined and written down corresponded with a dark time in her life. For a period of time my grandmother was estranged from the rest of us. I was around eleven when she moved away. There wasn't any contact between us for a number of years.

Now as I read her Bible I could see the "trail" she traveled during this trial. I saw how she moved from hurt to forgiveness, from feelings of loss to feelings of love. I had a better understanding of the choice she had made that caused the split between her and the rest of her family.Despite the fact that there wasn't any contact between all of us she was still praying for us.

My heart is also lifted because I can see how much she loved all of us. She taped a lock of my brother's hair in her Bible. She wrote about a special Mother's Day she had enjoyed with all of us. I see how much she loved God and that even though she was getting older, she wasn't afraid of what lay ahead because she knew God would be taking care of her.

So even though my grandmother passed away long ago, I still feel she is beside me, helping me in my journey to be a stronger and wiser Christian. She's accomplishing this because she took the time to write about her spiritual journey inside the most powerful book there is, the Bible.

Martha W.

Northwood, OH