“God is even now dipping his pen into the inkwell of wholeness, writing your story and mine into his larger story. God turns broken stories into beautiful prose and unwanted pages into stunning masterpieces of victory. That’s not just a promise; it’s bedrock truth.”- Sharon Jaynes
In Chapter 1 (“May I Please Have a Different Story?”) of When You Don’t Like Your Story: What If Your Worst Chapters Could Become Your Greatest Victories?, Sharon Jaynes observes that everybody loves a good story. But not everyone loves their own story. For most of us, Sharon adds, we don’t dislike our stories in their entirety. Just certain parts. Yet, in You Are Not the Author of Your Story, Paul David Tripp counsels:
“Your life story is a biography of wisdom and grace written by Another. . . . Every turn he writes into your story is right. Every new character or unexpected event is a tool of his grace. Each new chapter advances his purpose.”
Certainly, we cannot delete, discard, or amend the past. However, it’s possible for us to purpose and reclaim the present. Thus the author describes what happens when we purpose and reclaim:
” . . . we get something better than we ever imagined — a masterful work of God’s redemption and grace to share with the world, a world that needs to hear the story that only we can tell.”
In conclusion, the Japanese used the art of kintsugi to fix broken pottery with resin-dusted precious metals, such as gold, silver, or platinum. Kintsugi celebrates seeing beauty in the flawed or imperfect. As a result, the Japanese display this pottery with pride.
And in your story, you can’t tear a page out and still make sense of that story. But you can learn to make sense of your story, trusting God to keep writing your story into His. As artist and poet Terri St. Cloud once wrote:
She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful.”
Today’s question: How does God turn your broken stories into beautiful prose? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The cold shoulder – giving it to God”
