We each have a life story, penned without ink, read by the people around us. Who's writing your story?

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Reading Between the Lines

For months now, I've eyed that quiet shelf in my office closet, the third one down, with a lifetime of journals and prayer notebooks arranged in order by date. Over the years I've moved them from place to place as we've repurposed and rearranged, but not once did I crack one open to read the chronicles within.  

If you've followed my journey, you're familiar with my occasional yet repeated references to simplifying and downsizing. I've spent the last four years wading through a lifetime of accumulated "stuff," highly motivated by my desire to spare my children the weight of it all.

It's one thing to toss 1984 homeschool catalogs, donate dozens of VHS documentaries, and find teachers and students who gladly receive Latin and Spanish curriculum. It's quite another to decide what to do with decades of handwritten stories. Stories about family, events, celebrations, school days, worries, fears, regrets, life lessons, and well . . . whatever else happened to come to mind on any given day. Memories recorded in black and white . . . someday to be remembered in living color.


On my birthday last September, I decided it was my job to take care of these volumes in one way or another. In March, I finally mustered up the courage to begin. Page after written page, I read. Sometimes I found myself smiling . . . like the time one of the girls danced around the living room singing, "I can read! I can read!" Or when said daughter couldn't decide on which socks to wear to make her "shoes feel good." Or the day she got her head stuck in a chair at school. Another of them dressed up like Polly Pepper, and at Thanksgiving, a native American, complete with fringe and papoose.

I found the record of when we paid off our house and the season we harvested 49 quarts of strawberries and canned umpteen quarts of tomatoes and pickles. I noted the day when Patches the Guinea pig died and how Daddy helped bury him in the garden under a stone painted yellow. I leafed through the celebratory stories of birthdays and end-of-the-school-year-parties, prayers and baptisms, swimming lessons and family outings.

But lest you think our lives were mostly idyllic, my eyes also traveled over pages of weary fatigue, frustration, busyness, uncertainty, and desperate prayers for wisdom and guidance. I scribbled, "God, where are you? I'm trying so hard. Why does it seem I will never be enough? Please take care of my girls." Tears sprang to my eyes as I laid the book down. 

Can you relate?

I happened to mention my bittersweet experience to a friend who parroted back to me what she and I had talked about in times past. "What is true?" she reminded me. "Read your journals as an act of worship as you recall God's work in your life. Let go of the pages that are no longer beneficial." 

An act of worship. Letting go of the If Onlys leaves room for us to read the grace of God between the lines. His unfailing presence. His steadfast love. His promise of redemption. He brought us through those days . . . the learning days . . . the growing days . . . all for His glory. 

It's been good for me to review my life through my own pen. Humbling, really. Words have a way of representing a more accurate picture than memory. All these years later, I find myself worshipping God with a sweeter appreciation for His faithfulness . . . and for His readiness to listen to the broken, hopeful prayers of a mother's heart. 




Behold, I am doing a new thing . . . 
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 43:19

8 comments:

  1. I needed to hear this today. We choose what we carry. I am praying for grace to keep the reminders of His faithfulness in my life and, as an act of surrender, to learn from and let go of the pages of my past that do not serve me or strengthen my faith in the present.

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts, Julie. "We choose what we carry." A great statement to put the past into perspective.

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  2. Thank you – for your encouraging reminders: "What is true?" Letting go of the If Onlys leaves room for us to read the grace of God… unfailing presence… steadfast love… redemption.

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    1. Blessings, Jan. What would we do without God's grace for the past, present, and future?

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  3. Thanks, Sarah, for your always inspiring testimony of the Lord's faithfulness and your example of faith in Him. We appreciate you sharing your gift of writing, for God's glory, with us.

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    1. Thanks for your support and encouragement along the way, Steve and Judy. God is truly present even when we can't find Him. So very grateful that He is the Good Shepherd from beginning to end.

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