Telling Our Story and His Story

I was pleased and surprised to receive a unique Christmas  gift from my oldest daughter, Heather and her family a few weeks ago.   While I appreciate getting gift cards, a new tie, or a new shirt,  this gift was one that  allowed me to give a part of myself.   There is a web site out there called StoryWorth where a person is prompted to write stories once a week for 52 weeks (one year) from a question that is emailed to you each week.  The recipient of the email then either answers the question in written form or they can call into a phone number and verbally answer the question.  When the 52 weeks are over,  StoryWorth prepares all of these stories in a book form and sends it to the giver of the gift.    The questions that Heather and StoryWorth have sent so far have brought tears and laughter as I tell stories about my Mom, my Dad, my favorite childhood toys, and other things. I am enjoying the process.  All of us have an interesting  story to tell about a subject that we know much about, and that subject is ourselves. 

One of the things that I have been reminded of as I have written these stories of my life is of the working of God woven throughout every segment of  my life.   Throughout the years of my story is His story, God’s story stirring and working  often in ways unseen.    A doctor tells my Mom while she carries me in the womb that I will be born either dead or deformed… a family friend just happens to reach down into the muddy waters of a farm pond at the right spot and rescue me as I am  drowning… a youing teenage boy invites me and my family to attend the United Methodist Church he attends and I give my life to Christ at that church a few years later…  a beautiful woman named Ann  who I now call my lovely wife just happens to sit directly in front of me at a church homecoming dinner.    Some may call those momentous events in my life coincidences or simple irony.    I see them as the truth of  what Jesus says in the Gospel of  John:  “my Father is working still.”     Throughout the course of my ordinary life is the extraordinary presence of God moving and working.   And you know what?    If you really think about it,   I think that perhaps you will see the same.  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God, thank you for giving me life and for the gift of new life in Christ.  Thank you for all the ways seen and unseen  that you continue work in the events of my life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.