You, Beloved One of God, are a library of stories.
You are a story of courage and loss. A story of hope and despair. A story of dumb things you did when you were young. You are a story of passion, of adventure, and hope.
I wonder, however, what story you tell about yourself. Several times I have encountered research about the difference between the ways men and women tell their own stories. Men often identity success in their stories while women do not. Women, I’m sorry to say, can be poor storytellers. I know that is true of myself. I’ll look back on the day and the headline will sting with words I’d like to take back and things I would do differently. My story is shaped by my own mistakes, fears, and insecurity.
How do you tell your own library of stories? Can you look back on the past few days and see the light of Christ that beamed in you? The way you were the hands of Christ for someone else? The words you spoke that were shaped by your deepest prayers?
Investigate the story you tell about yourself, you who are made in the image of God. Remember God made all kinds of cool things in the creation story, but only when God made human beings did God say, “Wow, that is good. That is very good.”
God did not call you perfect and has never instructed you to be perfect. Instead, you are very good because God has made you very good. All other stories are in the shadow of the story of the God who made you very good and calls you very good.
Might that be the story you tell about yourself today?
Lisa Lewton 