The part of Bible School that I liked the best was the colored cards.  Red, blue, purple...ten in all, each with ten scriptures on each card.  If you memorized the scripture on one card, you got the next one.  I wanted them all.  It was like getting a special prize.  

Ten simple scriptures on each card, along with their address in the Bible. 

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  Then on to the next one: 

“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want...” 

And the next, “In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.”  

The “thees” and “thous” and “thines” rolled off my tongue like King James music. 

No mistakes.  Each scripture had to be exact--perfect to the last “therefore.”  I learned them all.  Exactly.  Every dot and tittle.  Ten days, ten scriptures a day.  One hundred scriptures every summer.

Through the years, the scriptures got harder.  In kindergarten class, “God is good,” would do.  But by grade six, you had to memorize the whole verse.  “The Lord is my shepherd,” at age five was enough.  But that evolved into the entire 23rd Psalm by the time I was in the sixth grade.

I memorized a lot of scriptures by the time I was twelve.  At least six hundred.  They weren’t Methodist, Baptist or Presbyterian verses.  They were Bible verses.

I would repeat them over and over so that when I recited them to the teacher, they were perfect.  I wanted the next colored card with ten verses.  I wasn't an athlete.  I never won a race or hit the basket in basketball.  The Bible cards in bright colors were my trophies.
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