This passage comes from the book, Women Who Loved God by Elizabeth George.
“What has God promised you, one of His precious women? The Bible contains as many as 8,000 promises. In difficulty and disaster, in trial, tragedy, trauma, and testing, in times of spiritual, emotional, and physical darkness, you can trust these promises. You can be assured that God will do for you, too, exactly as He has promised.
A young French woman once created a ‘promise box’ to teach her children that the promises of God bring special comfort in times of need. The small box contained 200 handwritten promises copied out of the Bible onto small pieces of paper. Little did she know that her own trust in the Lord would be severely tested in war-time France!
With no food available for her family- her children emaciated and hungry, wearing rags and shoes without soles- she turned to her promise box. In desperation she prayed, ‘Lord, O Lord, I have such a great need. Is there a promise here that is really for me? Show me, O Lord, what promise I can have in this time of famine, nakedness, peril, and sword.’ Blinded by tears, she reached for the box to pull out a promise and knocked it over. God’s promises showered down all around her, on her lap, and on the floor! Not one was left in the box. What supreme joy in the Lord she found as she realized that all of the promises of God were hers- in the very hour of her greatest need.”
Eighteen years ago, I found the book that this passage comes from at a yard sale. This story in particular touched my heart. I was overwhelmed by the fact that there were 8,000 promises found in the Bible. “What if I created a promise box of thirty-one promises from the Bible to review with Dan and Mitch?” I asked myself. Thus, began a search for promises I wanted them to know and think about when needed. Once I chose the thirty-one verses, I typed them out and glued them each to a different colored piece of construction paper and put them in an index card box. When the boys were little and could not read, I read them one promise each morning while they ate breakfast. This truly took only seconds each day. When they could read, each boy took a turn to read a promise in tthe morning before going to school. Being human and brothers, sometimes we HAD to read TWO promises because we could not really remember whose turn it was and an argument ensued. Just keeping it real, my friends! After many years of this simple habit, all of us hid these thirty-one bible verses in our hearts so that we can remind ourselves and others of God’s promises.

If you would like to purchase the list of promises we had in our promises box, click here for more information about this laminated bookmark of promises:

33 Promises of God Bookmark

Father God, thank you so much for each of your perfect promises. Amen.