I was in line at a Barnes and Noble Bookstore the other day and there was a rack of beautiful and elaborate gift-quality bookmarks near the cash registers. I marveled at how bookmarks have changed. Remember how bookmarks were once a common item in our lives?

Bookmarks are strips of leather, cardboard, or other material used to mark one’s place in a book. As a kid, I remember the local public library gave you a paper bookmark when you checked out your books. I would take the greatest of care and use my bookmarks to remember my place in the book. Your public library allowed you to check out several books at a certain age, so I could have several bookmarks in use.

I’ve collected some bookmarks over the years. I’ve also found them in old books. Right-Side-Up Stories used to have a bookmark with my poem Step Inside on the front of it. I need to bring that bookmark back. I’ve given bookmarks away as gifts, sent them to people in a card, … and I’m certain you have done the same.

We don’t use bookmarks as much as we used to, do we? We read online or on a Kindle, Nook, iPad, or laptop that give us access to bookmarking our place.  Sometimes we replace bookmarks with something else when reading a real book. We’ll grab a piece of paper, an envelope, or bend down the corner of a page.  It’s never quite the same as a bookmark.

Our lives are full of stories. The relationships in our lives are living stories. If you think about it, we are kind of like books with chapters. As people share their stories with us we would be wise to remember where we left off with them. Almost like a placing a mental bookmark. The hurried effort we live, the overwhelm of life, and work will attempt to crowd out the remembering. It will require us thinking for a second of a way to mentally and emotionally mark the place where we stopped in the conversation with that person. This is always a good idea. If we were to measure our life by the bookmarks we last placed in someone’s life, what page would we be on in their story?

I have made a more recent habit of going back and checking in with people who have asked me to pray for them. In some way, the story they’ve been living has always changed. You can get the Facebook version or the intimate how-they-are-really-doing version by asking off the radar through a text, email or a phone call.

The cost and effort? Time and intention.

The value? Priceless.

I encourage you to move the bookmark forward in a relationship today. The best part is that someone else’s amazing life story is being taken into your story as you do this.  While you are at it, turn the page in the storytelling of your life. Maybe they didn’t ask, but tell one of your recent amazing stories. Move their bookmark forward!