More of My Story

This is my story. Well, actually it’s God’s story. Always has been, but these chapters are from the days in my life that were written in His book before the first one began. (Psalm 139:16) You may wonder how exactly the events of my life could be recorded before they happened. That’s not usually how history works, but God stands apart from time. He sees and knows all that can be known whether it happened in the past or will happen in the future. He is not writing my story. It is already written.

This fact does not make him a puppet master. Just because he knows my thoughts and actions does not mean He dictates them. Past, present, and future are reserved for finite beings, not eternal ones. Until my days around the sun on planet Earth expire, I remain limited by time and space. The laws of nature, like gravity, will apply to me and you until that great and glorious day when we will fly!

I was forty-seven years old the first time I flew in an airplane. I have since flown a few times and solely in commuter jets between our small regional airport and a large international one. My younger son needed surgery and only after driving the seventeen hours one way and home again for his initial evaluation did I agree to fly, and then under duress. I truly had every intention of flying once in my life and United was not what I had in mind!

“We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.

First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.”

1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/1th.4.16-18.NLT

What I keep learning along the way is that each part of my story prepares me for the next. What takes more faith for you to believe? That God is a spirit who is intimately involved in your life, or that you exist in the universe alone and unaided?On that fall day in October, I believed more in God’s ability to finish what He started in my life and in the life of my son than I did in the pilot’s ability to deliver us safely to our destination. I know in retrospect that he and his copilot are well trained to fly jets but during that first flight, I knew God much better, and that knowledge directed my feet down that runway and into that plane.

If this sounds absurd to you, then you’ve never really felt out of control of your own situation. You’ve never made a choice or taken a risk that put your life entirely into someone else’s hands. You’ve likely reasoned that there will never be a situation you couldn’t handle on your own by simply assuming control.

No? Then what or who are you depending on for your next breath? What makes you certain when you close your eyes to sleep that your brain directing your involuntary muscles will keep your heart beating till morning? When the sun sets on the day that’s far too short thanks to Daylight Savings Time, why are you hopeful that it will rise again at the appointed time? Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, you have faith in someone or something, even if that someone is yourself.

I choose to believe in God.

I am an accountant by education. I have an analytical mind by design. Numbers fascinate me. I am intrigued by patterns and I’m ecstatic when the ledger is in balance. In life, the debits and credits rarely match up, and the odds are not usually in your favor. Three out of five people in my biological family have had cancer, and four of five in my husband’s family. My sister, who was diagnosed first, said recently, “We’ve shared a lot in our lives but cancer is definitely not one of the things I hoped we’d share.”

At this point, if you’re still reading, you’re either agreeing wholeheartedly with me, adding your “Amen” to mine, you’re curious about how this is going to end, or you’re wondering where I’m going with all this nonsense. I don’t know your story. I don’t know where you come from or what you’ve been taught. I can only speak from personal experience. This is my story. And my story is part of God’s story. So is yours, believe it or not.

“No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.

And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.

But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.”

1 Corinthians 2:11-14 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.2.11-14.NLT

Only one thing makes the Word of God intelligible to human beings and that is the Spirit of God. It is the one thing we can all share by faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who by His life, death, and resurrection made our relationship with God possible.

“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes.

This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

Romans 1:16-17 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.1.16-17.NLT

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.2.8-9.NLT

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.

For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?”

Romans 10:9-10, 13-14 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.10.9-14.NLT

This is what compels me to share my story. God has given me the task of reconciliation.

“For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.

And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”

2 Corinthians 5:19-21 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.5.19-21.NLT

Stay tuned for more of my story. I’ve already flipped to the last page and read the ending, but I still can’t wait to see how it all turns out!