The Author's Hands

I sat down last night to write in my journal, my heart full of turmoil. I was frustrated, discouraged, even despairing. And I began to try to pour out my heart and thoughts to God, to place some of my pain on the pages I wrote. But for some reason, after the first paragraph, I found myself, with no prior intention, writing off into a different vein. The following is what I wrote in my journal that night, and I hope that it might encourage you, wherever you are in your own life.

I think of how much writing seems to soothe me. There’s something I’ve always loved about filling the blank lines on a page, of feeling my pen run across the paper to create and leave behind thoughts, stories, and expressions that have never been. An empty page soon becomes a canvas for the soul, the lines like prison bars to firmly hold the thoughts that the human heart entrusts to them. It is beautiful; it is magic. To leave behind on each page a picture, a moment in time that can never be recreated. I find release in leaving behind a little of myself on the pages I write.

No wonder You, O God, are the Author of our souls. You take our lives, empty and blank pages, and with a Master’s hand write words into our lives by Your Spirit. Once meaningless, our lives become filled with words of God Almighty as You carefully craft our story--YOUR story for us--onto the pages of our soul. And if a writer leaves behind his words, his thoughts, his heart on the pages he’s written, it stands to reason that as You write our lives, our stories, into us, Your hand leaves behind Your heart. I have been marked and filled by the very words and plans of God. I can no longer be the same. Though my life was once meaningless, empty, and blank, God’s hand has left his mark on me, and suddenly I am filled with and covered by meaning. I have been made into something. I have been left beautiful by the Writer’s hand, left with His heart and touch inside me. The Master has written His life into me.

And my story has not yet been finished. Like the remaining pages of this journal, my soul waits for God to finish His work on me. The remaining years of my life have not been written on yet. But I know one thing: the only hand I want to finish my story is that of Jesus Christ. Write meaning into my heart, O God, and leave me forever marked by You, the Author and Finisher of my faith. On my dying day, I want Your hands to be the ones to write “The End,” and for you to look at the pages of my life, written only by Your hand, and I pray that you say, “It is good.” And then You will welcome me into Your Kingdom, where the best story is waiting to be written, a story that has no end. Even the very reason I may enter Your kingdom is because Jesus Christ has written, with his blood, the word "Redeemed" across my soul.

So, Father, on these days of frustration and tears and sorrow, I will do my best not to despair. For my story is not yet over. Your hands are still writing, and these days and moments would not have been unless You had planned to perfectly weave them into the rest of my story. Today has set the stage for Tomorrow, my story that is still untold--but not unknown to You. So as I weep, I will try to rejoice. And as I am discouraged, I will try to be brave. I will wait, with hope and trust, because I know my story has not been finished yet.

And I know Who holds the pen.