Honoring Every Part of Your Story
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things to do was to sit at the kitchen table with my family and share stories about my night time dreams. According to my family, every time they heard me say, “I had a dream last night,” they knew it was going to be a while. I blame my creativity that allowed me to keep adding to my story. I must say, I would come up with some amazing dreams, after all who wants to hear about a boring dream, right?
For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to somehow turn something “not so great” into something “more beautiful.” So fast forward into adulthood, when plenty of “not so great” things happened in my life, I found myself struggling with those parts of my story.
There were a few very specific parts of my life that really left me wishing that some how I could edit or erase the “messy parts” of my story. They were painful and hard realities. I often found myself wondering how I could possibly make my life story better. I remember hearing God encourage me during a very painful season. He reminded me that the parts I called the most messiest were actually the parts that He saw as most beautiful. It was honestly hard to believe, pain can often taint our lens and impact our hope. I wanted God to show me how the truth found in Romans 8:28 could be evident in my own story.
The truth found in this verse offered me a different hope and expectation, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” I became really curious about how this truth could possibly apply in my own life. Through the process of my surrender to trust God, God has faithfully revealed that every part of my story truly does matter. He doesn’t see any part of my story as “too messy.” He doesn’t see that any part of my story can’t be used for good. In fact, every part of our story offers an opportunity to be made more into His image and can move us towards the purposes He has for us.
Friend, sometimes it’s easy to honor the parts of our story that we describe as “good” and want to forget about the parts that feel hard and painful. I want to encourage you to believe that God can work all things together for the good of those who love Him. I’ve learned that we don’t have try to make our story “more beautiful” it already is to Him. I’ve learned that we don’t have to try to erase the parts that have felt hard because He can use even those parts to reveal the good in Him and His good plan for our lives.
The journey of seeking Him in every part of your story welcomes the opportunity for Him to show you that every part of your story matters because you matter dearly to Him. What would it look like to honor every part of your story and believe that He truly is working all things together for your good?
