History in the Making

As most of you probably know by now, I love to write!  I can think way back to fourth or fifth grade at St Eugene's Parochial School, when we were given an assignment during our penmanship class to copy an entire story in order to practice using our newly learned cursive writing skills.  I remember being enthralled with task set before me as I furiously penned the story into my class notebook, while sitting at the kitchen table at home.  (You know… I still have that notebook somewhere…)

It was also at that time that I gained an affection toward quality writing instruments… in other words… having a nice pen!  And up through today, I still use my favorite pen, that being a Parker Jotter Ballpoint Pen… In fact… if you were to look around my house you would find one on the kitchen table, in my bedroom and two or three in and on my desk in the study.  Oh yeah… I also like their version of the mechanical pencil as well!

As the years went by and I began to apply myself in school, I was finally moved up into an academic English class as a junior in high school.  And wouldn’t you know it, that it was there that I discovered the one special individual with whom I would write the majority of the story of the rest of my life.

At the SRJC I was able to take an English 101 class where we got to spend the entire semester creatively writing our own stories on a variety of subjects.  Then at Sonoma State University I really enjoyed researching and writing many papers in the study of Adolescent and Family Psychology… mostly written from a Christian viewpoint… and whew…  Did I take a lot of heat… but it was good as it helped me to stand up for my beliefs and present the Gospel in a logical way to those who had no concept of the gospel message! 

Then in-between and after those school assignments, I had begun to write Christian music, our Rock Opera and what came to be the fledgling start to a lifetime of original lesson plans, youth retreat study plans, plays, Vacation Bible Schools, Children’s Church curriculum and all-church family fun nights!  I even wrote a few fun-filled activity-based study plans for some of our family camping vacations for the six of us to interact with!

I was watching a Hallmark movie last night where a widower took his two kids to the childhood vacation cabin where his recently deceased wife and the kids Mom had spent her summers.  It seemed that everywhere he looked throughout the little seaside community he would find evidence of his wife’s presence there.  At one point he is standing in the entrance room of the lighthouse that was next to the cabin and spotted his wife’s name scrapped into the wall of the old deserted structure.

With a faraway look on his face (one that I quickly recognized), he stared at her childish hand writing and said, “You really had a HISTORY in this place, didn’t you?”

I happened to be walking over to my kitchen in our open floorplan front room at the time and without thinking, stopped and looked at a picture on the wall of Piper and I, that was taken at our 20^th high school reunion and declared aloud, “Well, we sure had a lot of HISTORY together, didn’t we?”  And then for some reason I began to smile and laugh a bit as I said… “We also had and made a lot of His-Story together too… didn’t we!”

On this subject, Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:10 that, “He (God) planned to bring all of HISTORY to its goal in Christ…” (God’s Word ©)  Later on in Ephesians 3:11 he reiterated his point that God’s plan for HISTORY was to be carried out though Jesus Christ.  While speaking for God, the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah declared, “Who has determined the course of HISTORY from the beginning? I, the LORD, was there first, and I will be there to the end. I am the one!" (God’s Word ©)

All those thoughts flowing through my head at that moment last night made me grab the remote and pause the movie while I sorted through everything!  And while all of His-Story that Piper and I had made during our precious time together was of utmost importance and gave a strong foundation to our family and hopefully to all of those that we were blessed to minister to, what was of more importance to me right then and there… was His-Story that I still have the opportunity to write for today and tomorrow!

In many ways, I am in a very unique situation with a whole new life ahead of me to discover.  Over the last 15 years, life as I knew it took a giant leap… RIGHT OFF A CLIFF… for me!  But while it was hard, it also gave me an extraordinary opportunity to learn a whole bunch of lessons, give me a wealth of actual experience in a wide variety of situations and get closer to God than I EVER thought I would or could!

When I walked away from the self-checkout area at Walmart the other day, I turned to the young cashier overseeing the registers and told him with a chuckle that “My wife would be so proud of me for checking myself out on my own…” to which he burst out laughing!  Well… I want her to also be proud of me for the His-Story that He and I will write in the coming days, months and years!

How about you?  What part of His-Story are you and He writing these days?  Paul told us in Ephesians that God’s plan is to bring all of our HISTORY to its goal in or through Christ.  So, think about this… In Ephesians, Paul also calls Christ the head of the church and us, the church, His body.*  In I Corinthians chapter twelve, he explains how there are many working parts to a body and likens us to those working parts saying that we each have special and/or unique jobs to perform... or stories (or His-Story) to write!”**

When I finally get to heaven… after I stand at awe before Jesus and the throne of All Mighty God, give Piper an AWESOME, tight and L-O-N-G hug, and say “Hi” to all the other family and friends I know up there… I think that it will be exciting to sit in the cool of the day with Jesus and read in the book of His-Story and see just how He penned our story. 

What about YOU?

 

*Ephesians 5:23

**I Corinthians 12:12-31