Written in the Margins

HI! I’M BETSY.

Those closest to me call me BRD (my initials, Betsy Ross Davis, pronounced “Bird”), and I hope

you’ll soon feel close enough to call me BRD too. Each week I’ll share personal stories about

what’s happening in my life, along with the practices I’ve leaned on for years to navigate

through it and enjoy the WOW moments it brings. I’ll send each entry early on Monday

mornings, so you can read it in the quiet before your day and week begins. My hope is that

you’ll find encouragement, inspiration, laughter and hope here, in the margins.

Hi friends,

Welcome to the very first entry of In the Margins. Before we go any further, I want to tell you

where the name comes from. It starts with a woman named Virginia. To those closest to her,

she was simply “Virg.”

Virg was my grandmother. Besides my mom, she was the woman who poured the most into my

life, and another beautiful teacher of faith. She introduced me to the lake my home sits on

today, where I live and write. She gave me my first glance at “luxury”: fashion, sunglasses, high

heels, jewelry, nice cars. (If you know me, you’re nodding right now.)

She understood me better than most, and her home on the lake was my favorite place to

escape to as a child.

THE STORY

A colored pencil and a well-worn Bible

When I stayed with Virg for days at a time, every night ended the same way. She’d lie in bed

with her Bible and a colored pencil in her hand. Any scripture that spoke to her got highlighted, and often a note in the margin.

Her Bibles were covered in color, the thin pages worn even thinner from all that pressing.

One year, when I was older, she gave me one of those Bibles as a gift. (Later she gave me

another, just as worn and just as colorful. I still have them both.)

Years later, as I began leaning into my faith, I cracked hers open... and found notes written

specifically to me. Scriptures she wanted me to read. Books of the Bible she believed would

guide me most. My name, in her handwriting, right there in the margins.

Next to Matthew 6, “do not worry”: “So Betsy – do not worry – Trust God.”

At the start of James: “Faith is believing the Word – what God says He will do, He will do for me...for everyone.”

It was as though she knew I would find them one day.

THE LESSON

Messages in the margins

Here’s what Virg taught me without ever saying it out loud: if we look, and if we listen, God

leaves us messages.

Guidance is written in the margins of our everyday lives. A nudge. The right word from a friend

at just the right moment. An answer we didn’t even know we were waiting for. Most of the

time, we just need to get quiet enough to hear them and see them.

A LITTLE SOMETHING TO HOLD ONTO

The guidance is already there, written in the margins. We just have to get quiet enough to see it.

That’s what I want these weekly entries to be. Messages in the margins. A little

encouragement when you need it. A little guidance. An “aha” moment that gives you an

answer or a nudge, or simply lets you know you’re not alone in what you’re feeling and going

through.

SNEAK PEEK

How I find my own margin messages

Virg had her colored pencils. I have my journals. Here are three practices that help me catch

the messages:

01 · Getting Quiet

Taking time to get still enough to hear the message. The guidance is there; the noise just

drowns it out.

02 · Journaling

Writing it down. Twenty years of my own journals became the margins where so much of Living

in the WOW was born.

03 · Baby Steps of Faith

Listening for the nudge, then acting on it. One small step at a time.

YOUR STEP THIS WEEK

What’s written in the margins of your life right now?

1. Get quiet for five minutes a day this week. No phone, no noise.

2. Keep a journal close and write down anything that nudges you: a verse, a song, a

conversation, a feeling.

3. At the end of the week, read it back. What might God be trying to tell you?

Always Grateful,

Betsy