Scripture Reading

So I will admit, reading scriptures is a habit that needs improvement in my life. David and I decided when we were married almost 5 years ago that we would read one chapter of our scriptures together every day. We started with 1 Nephi (The Book of Mormon) on our wedding night and went from there. It took several years but we eventually read through the entire standard works together, including one of my personal goals to read through the entire King James version of the Bible. Some days we would miss but we would always read double the next day or whatever to "catch up." However with our most recent work schedule, finding time to read together is more and more difficult as our days become a blur of work, sleep, food, and baby. I decided we needed some sort of visual reminder to keep us on track. So the scripture schedule chart was born. This is how it turned out. I decided to go with posterboard so it was a large visual, and while shopping I discovered that they make posterboard with a grid already printed on them. After measuring out my month size, I just decided to fill the posterboard and use the size grid that was printed on it. In the end, this chart will last us all of this year as well as the next three. It was very bizarre to think that Nathan would be four by the time the chart was finished. That's so crazy!Here is a close up of the top left corner. You can see the months on the left and the days of the month across the top in red. As we just finished the Book of Mormon (again), we are on to the Doctrine and Covenants followed by the Pearl of Great Price. After reading through the Old Testament once, we've decided that was enough for awhile (anyone ever read the Old Testament all the way through? It's got a few good parts but most of it is terribly dry...Book of Numbers, for example). Therefore, after the Pearl of Great Price (which is basically the good parts of the Old Testment anyway, haha) we will move on to the New Testament before returning to the Book of Mormon.

These last two photos show more detail of the little squares. Say what you will, but I DID take the time to fill in 3.5 years worth of tiny squares with the scripture for that day. In case you are curious, from now until December 2013 if you read one chapter a day, you can read through the standard works twice (not counting the Old Testment, of course) and you can even get 20 or so sections into the Doctrine and Covenants again. It took me a few hours but I think it turned out well. We bought some stickers to finish the look. As we read, we can put a sticker on each daily square. I have to say I was pretty pumped to put the first sticker on this evening.

Hopefully this will help us get up a better habit.