Today is Saturday, July 10, 2021, and I have a few stories crowding my thoughts, so I decided to go outside and enjoy the beautiful day that God blessed me with. I am sitting outside of my home in the place that my neighbor and I made our quiet-time space. We have windchimes, two nicely padded benches facing each other, potted colorful plants, an outdoor rug, end tables and some starlight lighting for the evening. This is the place where I am doing my summer writing for the BLOG just to give you a backdrop. Now for my story!

     I was really missing my daughter and granddaughters today and was reflecting on our individual discussions that we have when we are together. I particularly enjoy my conversations with my 6-year-old granddaughter. That little girl is a deep thinker. You see, her Pop-Pop and I are divorced as I have discussed in previous writings. Although you would never know it if you were in a room watching the two of us interact with our grands. There was a time when I had no desire at all to even be in the same room with him. God makes all things new and beautiful when we put it in His hands though. My granddaughter senses that there is something missing in this ‘relationship’ because in our quiet times she asks me questions like: “GiGi, why don’t you visit Pop-Pop’s house with us? Why don’t you and Pop-Pop live together? Do you love Pop-Pop?” The last month when she, her sister, Pop-Pop, and I were together she asked him, “Can GiGi come to your house when we visit?” He looked at me, I looked at him, and she in turn looked at us and said, “Why can’t anyone answer that question? Is it too hard?”

     The point in all of this is that someday we all would like to be able to sit down or lie down with our children or grandchildren and tell them ‘Our Story’, our entire story. As they get older, we would like to be able to add layers and details rather than hoping that they do not ask.

     If you are single, you want to someday sit across the table from someone that you hope to spend the rest of your life with and tell your story – all of it. We all want that but what it will require is for us to stop mid-decision and ask, “What story do I want to tell?” When an opportunity, a temptation, a crisis is in the rearview mirror; when it is reduced to a story I tell – what story do I want to tell? Which of the available options do I want as part of my story?

     Every decision you make becomes part of the story of your life. Every relational, financial, professional, and spiritual decision and its outcome become permanent parts of your story. We have all lived long enough to have a few chapters that we wish we could erase. No doubt we have a few stories that we wish we could rewrite. We ALL do. We call it regret. But chances are, the decisions that led to our greatest regrets could have been avoided had we paused to ask ourselves, “What story do I want to tell?” “What is my life’s testimony going to be if I do this?”

     From this point on, live your life so that you can write a story worth telling. Write a story you are proud to tell. If you are in the middle of deciding right now, stop and ask yourself, ‘Of all the available options, which one do I want as a permanent part of the story of my life?”

     Pop-Pop and GiGi have a good ending to our story because of God’s love for us and our understanding of God’s plan and purpose for our lives. We both chose to show our daughter and granddaughters the best of us, even during the difficult portions of our relationship. We wanted to show our granddaughters how good, mature, God loving people behave during times of adversity so that when they grow up and face life and its challenges, they will know what conduct is acceptable and appropriate for them and the people that they encounter. We have both agreed to one day tell our whole story to our granddaughter when she is old enough to fully understand because, in Christ, we can!

     “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1 NKJV. For those of you who haven’t worked it out yet, forgive each other, forgive yourselves, and start a new and better ending to your story for you and the people that you love. Be a blessing and be blessed!

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