Across the Page

I discovered Memory Monday at Hope Is the Word last week. It’s a meme hosted at The Simple Wife. “Each Monday my goal is to pick a verse or passage to memorize for the upcoming week,” writes Joanne, “and the next Monday, I’ll type it out BY MEMORY and choose another one.”

My girls (7 and 5) have been memorizing the 23rd Psalm. Here’s my attempt, using the New Living Translation, to type it out from memory. It doesn’t have some of the familiar and beautiful rhythms of the King James, but its simplicity made it seem like the most meaningful option for children, and made it a “new” passage for me too:

The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams; He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to His name. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for You are close beside me. Your rod and Your staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely Your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I just checked it over at Biblegateway, and I got it all. Yay! Well, the last line of the NLT uses “live,” not “dwell.” But when I was reading it into the tape for my daughters to memorize, I said “dwell.” So that’s how we learned it. (They correct me if I read “live” now. Scary, the way even my errors are preserved in the stone of their young minds!)

It was a toss-up between II Peter 1: 3 and 4, and I Corinthians 13 for our next passage. My older daughter preferred the love chapter, so that’s what we’ll go with.

For myself, I also want to brush up on this J.B. Phillips translation (paraphrase?) of Psalm 139. I memorized it years ago, when I was in college. It’s been returning to my mind a lot these days (in bits and pieces). Here it is, a bonus passage:

Thou art the God of the early mornings, the God of the late-at-nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, and greater depths than any sea in nature. Thou who art the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach the heights or the depths; there are motives I cannot trace, dreams I cannot get at. My God, search me out.