Monday, April 20, 2015

Dearest God,

Faith changes the story, any story, every story.  A story is just a story until faith enters.  Then it becomes a mystery, a wonder, a divine story of God.

For days now I've been telling the story.  This particular story has been painful.  This story is a story of entitlement, betrayal, hatred, resentment and bitterness.  Every time I came across one more wrong, I told the story again making sure I added that one new part.  Every night I went to bed angry, dead tired renewing our home to its original condition.  Every morning I woke up angry and ready, like Sherlock Holmes, to uncover yet another wrong.  Hour after hour I seethed...until faith came along.

When faith entered my story, I suddenly found more evidence of your presence than the dark, stormy clouds.  Divine whisperings, amazing grace, and angels singing the old, old story all joined the other parts of the story but they radiated like nothing else. When I found mars on my favorite grandmother's antique table, my whole body was ready to rise up in anger, but my Christian grandmother, gone for 30 years, spoke in a whisper, "It's okay, those scratches are okay to be there."  I stopped, I melted, I let my tears drop down.  Then I took my rag, poured Old English on the old table, and I started tenderly wiping it across the dark wood.  The mars took to that cover up, drank it in, filled up their wounds, and when I wiped it off and buffed it, it shined like a new table.  This time I heard your voice, Lord.  You said, "That's the way it is with sin."

A story is just a story, not very exciting, meaningful or valuable until faith comes, until you come, Father, and make the story your own.

What can
I say
to you,
Wondrous God?
How can
I adequately
thank you
for your generosity?
How can
I thank you
for faith?

Love always and forever more, Andrea