Breaking down the whole Bible can be difficult. It’s a huge book! Where do you start. And oh, if you read something once, next time you want to read it again and you don’t know where to find it. This is my problem because I’m terrible at remembering things, let alone memorize them. If I read it or see it often enough, or marked it somehow then I remember, but otherwise my brain doesn’t want to catch it.
For me Bible journaling helps a lot! It’s an easy way to look up Bible verses and it helps you to memorize Bible verses. So, let’s get started!
First things first, a Bible. Any Bible that you have will do. I have a simple KJV and I love it. I actually got it from Bible School years ago. But if you’re looking for a study Bible or a special journaling Bible then I recommend looking at Barns and Nobles or your local book store might even has some too.
These places have a great selection of journaling Bibles and I would highly recommend some of them. I would love one for myself actually, but like I said a normal Bible works too.
A few things you’ll need are colored pencils, colored pens, highlighters, and sticky notes. You can buy these at Wal-Mart or Dollar General. Or if you want to go all out you can go online or to an art store and buy things like artist pens, big brush pens, jelly roll pens, or acrylic paint pens. But like I said simple sticky notes and colored pencils work fine. If you are interested in more stuff, here are a few places you could look at.
Once you have your supplies ready it’s easy to start with a simple outline. This outline is great for quick access to a certain verse you might be looking for you. You’ll see that I color coordinated the outline. I use this– for an example,
Love is pink so anything I marked in pink will be about love.- Courage is orange so anything I marked in orange will be about courage.
And son on. I wrote this on a separate sheet of paper and put in place with a colorful paper clamp. You can simply write in your bible, but I was out of space.
Later when you’re reading Scripture you can mark what category it’s in and it’ll be easy to find. This is what I did in 1 Corinthians 11-14.
Now one thing I do, I highlight the outstanding verses then as I read on I underline the single outstanding words in colored pen. Some highlighters are hard to find if you’re just looking in Wal-Mart, that’s why I use colored pencils as a highlighter when it comes to purple or blue. You simply color over the verses as you would with a highlighter. And I also like this because that way there’s no bleed through on the other side.
The sticky notes come in handy if you don’t want to write in your bible that much. I do write in my bible, but eventually I run out of space so sticky notes are still on my list. It’s not very often you’ll find purple sticky notes, so what I did, I colored over a normal green sticky note with a purple pencil. Of course, there’s a bit of green peaking through, but I think it brings more color to it.
A wonderful way of making your bible your own: you can use ribbon as book markers. If you have anything lying around that’s special to you, a postcard, a picture, an old strip of cloth–it’s really easy to make a bible your own with memorable pieces. Or just something that really stands out to you. 
Like this your bible looks colorful and it’ll be easier to find what you’re looking for, plus it might help you memorize more verses.
Here is what a page in my bible looks like after a view hours of journaling.
This is what I did with this page, but there are plenty of other ways you can mark your bible. All it take is a creative mind and a will to do so.
Some people also mark verses in a separate notebook or journal. This is especially fun if you’re an artist. However, drawing is beyond my talent.
I do have a journal my cousins gave me for my High School graduation that I plan on journaling in. I have done some, but sadly I haven’t found the time to really get into it. Marking down the verses as you read is less time-consuming, therefore I get to that easier. I do love my journal–it is absolutely perfect for Bible journaling and I can’t wait to get started on it. I will leave you with a few ideas on the topic though, in case some of you are interest.
A neat way to narrow done what you read, is to ask yourself, “Who wrote this?”, “to whom did he write this?”, “why did he write it?”and “what is it about?”. Then write down what you thought of it and how it stood out to you and how you can learn from it. You can even draw in it or somehow make it colorful.
Here are some ideas that might stand out to you. 
These are some of the things you can do with Bible journals. There are so many great ideas you can try!
This is how I study my bible; while there are so many great ideas out there and tuns of creative stuff you can try I hope this helped you to know a little bit more on where to get started. From designer products to Wal-Mart products, if there’s a will, anything you have will work!
Wishing you the best with your journaling,
Maria