Your Story

Each of our lives has a story to tell. How are you telling your story? When the book of your life unfolds will others see victory, godly living, integrity, honor, humility, grace? Will there be chapters filled with anger, resentment, jealousy, selfishness, pride, unkindness? The good news is, though you are NOT always the author of your circumstances, you are the author of your story and you get to decide how it reads.

My father has recently been undergoing a battery of tests and we have been given little hope of recovery from the doctors. At nearly 81, his story may be drawing to a conclusion. My dad and I are as close as a father and daughter can be so the thought of losing him is painful, but I will never lose the story that he has written on my heart. More than his DNA, I carry his legacy of unconditional love, mercy and grace. His life has been my classroom. I have watched him deal with difficult people, difficult situations, and struggles of many kinds with integrity and gentleness. I have watched him love those who society has given up on. I have seen him pour himself into those whose lives have been transformed because of him. Conversely, I have watched him react with compassion when others turn and walk away after he has invested so much in their lives. Never have I witnessed self-pity or pride or a weariness so heavy that he wants to stop giving.

It is a wonderful gift to give your children… a story that is so full of peace, joy and contentment; of servanthood and compassion. It makes me wonder at the story my kids are receiving from me. It causes me to want to encourage you to consider the same and look to God for the transformation that can take place within each of us only after we submit to Him. It is His Spirit within us, whom we receive when we decide to follow God, that will begin to chip away at anything we see that is unsightly and offer to him for remodeling; His Spirit that adds the beauty that will replace the ugliness we surrender to Him; His grace that takes a wretched person and molds us, as much as we will allow, into the person He made us to be.

May I please encourage you to consider your story. Consider the kind of submission to the transforming power of God that allows Him to write it as He designed. Stop being who you can be on your own and be the person you can be if you let him embrace you, lead you, direct you, and make your story one that your kids will someday tell with pride. If you give them nothing else, give them the example of a life lived with Jesus as your closest companion. They will gain much for which to be grateful in a classroom like that.

 “Don't do anything only to get ahead. Don't do it because you are proud.

Instead, be free of pride.

Think of others as better than yourselves.”

Philippians 2:3