“God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to His eyes.”
Psalm 18:24 (MSG)
At first glance, this verse reeks of denial, the opposite of the book, No More Faking Fine by Esther Fleece. Can one – even the Holy One – rewrite the text of a life? Text sounds final, a last-word kind of thing. After pausing, I read on in curiosity of this Truth.
Ah, it is the book of our hearts that needs a rewrite – not the days and hours of our living. How can a heart be rewritten – after the fact? Can God undo the anger, the feelings of injustice, the raging jealousy, the nagging comparisons, the overwhelming insecurity, the heartache…?
Sometimes it is the ones who are bleeding most who come away on this brave weekend: “Dare to Be Still.” The retreats are not designed to be people-centered, but Holy Father centered. So it makes sense that some ladies come because their pain goes beyond human understanding.
As I stand on my private balcony overlooking the shoreline, the white-tipped waves and the bluest sky, I reflect on a few ladies who came today with that kind of pain. Tears flowed as I taught the “Listening Workshop.” Their raw emotion ran into Sacred Truth, releasing emotions that simply could not be contained.
I pause to pray for the ladies who are now in their private rooms, some may be entering the quiet spaces of their agony tonight.
And I wonder if some ladies are opening their hearts to God’s Eyes, perhaps for the first time in a long time, perhaps the first time ever.
The Lord then gently nudges me to get personal. Are there places in my own life that need a rewrite – a way to see the past differently as I dig deep to see it from His eyes?
And I ask Him, “Have You edited my life?” I sit back and reflect in the stillness.
In comparison to most, my life has been easy. Yet, in my 60’s now, I realize few take the journey unscathed, myself included. I begin journaling, a simple listing of the hardest moments jotted down first, and the way God met me beside it. Ah, yes. A worthy exercise. God reminds me of many past personal retreats and how He used those quiet moments to see my life – especially the hard experiences – through His eyes.
* A niece loses her battle with cancer, leaving four young children
* A sister experiences the worst of betrayals
* A lie once told about me and the sad results
* The sudden leaving of my husband to heaven
* And more…
And beside each story is a soft remembering of how the Lord met me there and how He went on to use my pain to comfort another. Yes! The text changed as God edited my life, healing my heart.
I prayed with confidence that the Lord would rewrite the text of these ladies' lives as they open the book of their hearts to His eyes.
Sometimes an edit takes gut-wrenching surgery. Other times it can be as simple as renaming. One those simple ones comes to mind. My husband and I had purchased a home in our dream neighborhood: a house fitting our family with few adjustments needed. And the setting? Ah. A forested backyard, a street, then schools.
On moving day, my parents came from California to lend a hand. I took a break out on the back deck, marveling that I had my own small, quiet forest. Suddenly, noise broke through the stillness and my heart sank. Recess time at the nearby elementary school. My mother’s quick response led to a renaming, an editing, that changed what could have been years of irritation.
“Honey, could anything be more beautiful than the sound of laughing children?” A red-letter edit – a gift to see my life from God’s perspective.
“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.”
A.W. Tozer
TO CONSIDER: Do you have places in your past that need a rewrite from God – a way to see the hard from His perspective?