Where the Story Begins

Everything is connected. 

It's hard to tell where any story begins. 

My 7th grade Life group and I are reading the story of Esther, and I'm reminded of the same reality there. I love that her story starts with the queen just before her, Queen Vashti. Because if Queen Vashti hadn't refused the king and been dismissed from her queenship in a such an abrupt manner, Esther would not have gained access to the kingdom for such a time as this.

What we think is the hard start of the story of our journey, it's so fun to keep looking back and back and back to see how all things worked together. How if that hadn't happened, than that wouldn't have come to fruition, and if that person hadn't asked you to do that or if that opportunity hadn't come about or if that pain hadn't hurt, then this story wouldn't be what it is. 

I like to think of it as the power of asset. 

Each moment, each door closed, each door opened, each opportunity, each pain (AMEN), we end up on the other side better than we were before. It starts us off on the next leg of our journey more free and more whole.

It's a crazy comfort to think that God is weaving this giant story in all of us. That at the end, our lives won't be disconnected experiences along the way BUT ONE BIG STORY of how He made us new in the time we were given. Each point isn't isolated, but breathes life into the next. Our learnings, well, they prompt more learnings. And I think, the me that is here now wouldn't be able to live this if I wasn't the me that I am. Because the me I was before hadn't learned yet what this me needs now. It's all asset talking. 

So, it's hard to find a real beginning. 

Two years ago?

When I moved to Fort Mill?

When I was in college?

My childhood?

My soul friend told me once that past is prologue.

She actually posed it this way - "please keep living this story and fighting this fight because what if this was the low point? what if this was the middle ground? if past really IS prologue? I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT'S NEXT. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE NEXT CHAPTER. you are in for one great adventure."

And it filled me with hope inside and reminded me of the Last Battle, where it says that all their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth had ever read; which goes on for ever; in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

To imagine the divine writing of a story that has only just begun. 

God is continuously at work, and maybe that's where our true beginning is. 

Can you imagine what is to come!?