Ruth Bell Graham vividly remembers September 2, 1933. She was thirteen. Her father, a missionary surgeon in China, and her mother were sending her to boarding school in what is now Pyongyang, North Korea. For Ruth, it was a brutal parting, and she earnestly prayed she would die before morning. But dawn came, her prayers unanswered, and she gripped her bags and trudged toward the riverfront. She was leaving all that was loved and familiar: her Chinese friends, the missionaries, her parents, her home, her memories. The Nagasaki Maru carried her slowly down the Whangpoo River into the Yangtze River and on to the East China Sea.
A week later she was settling into her spartan dormitory. Waves of homesickness pounded her like a churning surf. Ruth kept busy by day, but evenings were harder, and she would bury her head in her pillow and cry herself to sleep, night after night, week after week. She fell ill, and in the infirmary she read through the Psalms, finding comfort in Psalm 27:10 — Even if my father and mother should desert me, you will take care of me.
Still, the hurt and fear and doubt persisted. Finally, in desperation, she went to her sister Rosa, also enrolled in Pyongyang. “I don’t know what to tell you to do,” Rosa replied matter-of-factly, “unless you take some verse and put your own name in it. See if that helps.” Ruth picked up her Bible and turned to a favorite chapter, Isaiah 53, and put her name in it: “He was wounded and crushed because of Ruth’s sins; by taking our punishment, he made Ruth completely well.”
Her heart leaped, and the healing began.
Have you ever thought about doing that - putting your name on a verse in the Bible? It's a great way to merge your Bible reading and prayer together.
For example in Ephesians 1 Paul is expresses a prayer and thanksgiving to God for the Ephesian Church. This a great place to put your name on a prayer from Scripture - "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give (Tim) the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that (Tim) may know him better (Eph. 1:17).
You can even pray for our church this way. Philippians 1:9-11, "And this is my prayer for EVC: that our love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that our church leaders and members may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God."
What a refreshing prayer! What have you been asking God for? A job? A healing? Guidance in a decision? All of these things are important and we should ask God to intervene in all of these circumstances. But putting our name on Scripture really adds a powerful perspective and instruction to our lives. Like praying Philippians 2:3, "Lord God help me to not do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, let me consider others as well as myself."
Like Ruth Bell Graham, our hearts will leap and our healing will begin when we put our name on Scripture as we pray to God. Discover the secret of praying Scripture, for God loves to be reminded of his word. He invites us to approach his throne boldly — on the basis of his word and through the shed blood of Jesus Christ — to obtain mercy and to find grace to help in time of need.

Pastor Tim