The Power of the Story: My Story

“You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place; carefully, skillfully you shaped me from nothing to something. You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book.” Psalms 139:13-16 TPT

POV: Me Talking to the Master Storyteller and Author of My Story

There is no one left who remembers that rainy Tuesday morning when I was born. No one who remembers what it was like to carry me for 9 months. No one who remembers the first birth pains or the last ones before the doctors slapped the gas mask over my mom’s face, and I came kicking and screaming into the world. Truth be known, I guess my mom never remembered that part either, since 56 years ago the medical profession thought it best to knock you out before you could get tired of pushing. But there is no one left who remembers what my first few minutes with my family were like. No one but the Author of my story. You remember because You wrote it. And You were in the room where it happened. 

“You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book.” Psalms 139:16 TPT

You knew I would have brown hair and brown eyes. You knew I would have this insane love for books and writing and would even wear the title “book nerd” with pride! You knew that music would be more than a liking but be a failsafe if I ever needed a spiritual or emotional jumpstart in life.

You knew that social situations would freak me out, and words would only come easily on the other side of a pen or keyboard. You knew I would love learning and want to pass every test and every class with an A+++ You knew I would have a hole in my heart from birth, and it would be the thing you used to teach me about always praying and not fainting.

You knew I would struggle with intimidation—always wanting to be liked but never feeling worthy of anyone’s accolades or friendship. You knew confidence would elude me and depression would haunt me. You knew all these things, yet you said that “every single moment you are thinking of me; that you cherish me constantly with your every thought.” 

What is my story? It is an altar made of porcelain, a prayer closet that housed a bathtub for a baptismal, a place where we would come to meet each other in those early years. Where else could I go to be alone with You? And You never complained about the location even though my family did.

Do you remember that old church basement? It was West Virginia coalfields damp with those creepy crawly horned bugs slithering in every corner. The upright piano sang in a slightly off-key “It’s love, it’s love, it’s love that makes the world go round…” And it was in that dark, basement—the proverbial belly of the whale—that I learned that Nineveh can look an awful lot like southern West Virginia, and God’s message is for anyone who wants a place at the table. 

Do you remember junior high? This quiet kid crashed into a totally foreign culture, where I discovered that not everyone is honest and some people will even try to blackmail you for school supplies and locker space. It was the first time you felt far away. As I sat on a wooden bleacher in an old, dirty gym with people who didn’t know the second verse to “Jesus Loves Me”  and didn’t want to talk to a girl who kept her eyes on a book and her body crouched in a corner, in that moment, I felt like an outcast. Oh, if I could have been invisible, it would have been a better option. But I was on display—the girl who didn’t belong, the girl who didn’t have a voice. 

But…You didn’t leave me that way. You found a hiding place for me…so you could prepare me. Teach me that You are in the prayer closet, Your love isn’t dampened in the basement, nor are your eyes darkened in the belly of the whale. You’re with me in the middle of a crowd when my one wish is to be invisible. And You love me through every emotion, every fear, every moment of self-loathing.

As I flip ahead through pages of my life, some chapters bring smiles, some bring tears, and some are so faded by time and weathered by the elements that they are barely visible. But at each juncture, I see You on every page. Sometimes I didn’t even know you were there until I turned back and re-read the story. And I say to myself, “How could I have missed it? You were right there! The Hero of my story!”

I also see a very different girl. You know the girl in the early chapters of the story, the one who wished she could have the superpower of invisibility? I barely recognize her. Somewhere between the ink on the page and the messiness of everyday life, she changed. I can’t pinpoint the exact time, but she doesn’t spend her life in the shadows. Now she walks through them. It isn’t that she developed some superhero persona. She discovered that You were always with her, around her, before her, behind her, and inside of her. And when there is no one left on earth who remembers her name or that she is even there, You keep a book in Heaven with her name and every day of her life recorded there. She is that important to your story. I am that girl.

But every story has an ending…the resolution. It is where everything is uncovered, mysteries revealed, the world made right. But with you, Father, the story never ends. It is one eternal series that grows sweeter and sweeter with each telling.  Thank you for always being right in the middle of my story!