My Story

There is a song out right now by Big Daddy Weave titled, “This is My Story.” It is one of my absolute favorites! My heart swells each time I listen to the words, I mean really listen. If we think about it, our stories in life that have the biggest impact on others aren’t the happy ones judged by the worlds’ standards. They aren’t in the stories of how people got to be rich, how they have the biggest houses and the fastest cars, or how no tragedy has ever brushed their canvas.  These are not the stories that God uses to tell His story through us.

He sent His only son Jesus to this earth to be born in the lowest most humble of places (a barn), to live a life as a servant essentially, and walk amongst people who hated him his whole life. They would ultimately murder him with the most inhumane forms of death known at that time (crucifixion).  Yet this is the greatest love story in the Bible.  The story God used to offer salvation to all of His children. That through the death of His only son, if we just believe in Him, He offers us eternity with Him in Heaven.

God uses each one of us in similar ways. He uses our tragedy, our sin, our life struggles- to heal others while He is healing us simultaneously. Perhaps His greatest love story now in our current lives, is for us to tell our stories that God used to grow us. Where he took our pain, heartache, hopelessness, despair, fear,…the list goes on and on. But the story doesn’t.  It ends with our Heavenly Father taking all of those things and weaving them into a tapestry of grace, forgiveness, and healing.  Where He takes the ashes and mends them into a beautiful canvas known as life. He walks hand in hand with us through those darkest moments, perhaps even carries us at times when we lose strength enough to walk, and He stays by our side until the chapter becomes bearable. In His time, He moves us into that next chapter and with His love and grace, He writes it greater than all the ones before. He takes the brokenness that we lay at His feet, and heals us with His insurmountable peace and love. And then He calls us to share our story with the ones around us that He places in our path. It is through OUR stories that they will see His, and this gives Him our greatest honor and praise.

With love-   April

John 15:16-17

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.