At the top of a blank page, the opening paragraph of my life story flowed smooth and neat. Loving parents and brothers, a comfortable home, good friends, school, and community. I assumed it was my just due, until the ink began to smudge. Like tears falling on handwriting, my father’s alcoholism slowly dissolved my carefully penned narrative until it was unreadable. So I crumpled the paper and started again. I wanted to get it right, to pen a perfect tale on the pristine page, convincing myself all would be well, but ink blotches and cross-outs disfigured every attempt.
Some of the characters were too sad, primarily my beautiful mother locked deep in depression. How could she be part of the story when she would not speak? She slid off the page more times than I could count, fighting valiantly to return yet often reduced by suffering to a fragile footnote. Others were self-seeking, vying for their right to have riveting dialogue, like my brothers and I childishly competing for our parents’ attention.
I wanted my father to be the hero, tall and handsome in his military uniform, medals flashing on his chest. With a career taking him around the world, he had the potential to make a fine protagonist, rich with hubris and brave deeds. But he fell flat on the page, addiction making him weak though still loved. He tried, but there was no denying his family was a sidebar to the bold print of his professional ambitions.
If family drama was not my genre, then romance might be. I scribbled and discarded multiple pages in my search for someone to fill the void, many of the romantic leads fantasies from my own imagination. I rushed into marriage to a charming, narcissistic man, finding out too late his only goal was to self-publish his own grandiose feats. My manuscript ended up overworked and ragged ˗˗ pages torn, whole sections crossed out with red ink from my longing, broken heart.
Years later, I saw myself in the Samaritan woman Jesus met at a well˗˗a woman seeking a safe place for her heart in the only way she knew how (John 4). She came to the well a broken, outcast woman, having had five husbands, presently living with a man not her husband. Jesus knew this about her, cutting through culture and gender barriers to voice facts about her sinful life which no mere human could know. To her He made known His true identity as the long-awaited Messiah. She went from a woman shamed and rejected to one transformed by a life-altering encounter with the One she had been waiting for. Nothing would ever be the same for her again because Jesus Christ rewrote her life.
The account of the Samaritan woman revealed the truth about myself, that I was blind to my own need unless the One who knew my story opened my eyes. Could I invite Jesus to rewrite my life too? Absolutely.
When I opened my eyes and heart to Him, He took the stubby red pencil from my hand and with the ink of His own blood, rewrote my life story from His perspective. Like an editor working on a manuscript to refine the original prose, the Author of my salvation made me even better without losing the essence of who He originally created me to be. He conformed me to His own image, editing out my sin to replace it with His grace.
This transformation called me to leave my old, tattered life behind and begin again with a fresh page, rewritten by Christ. I found my focus shifting from myself to Him and those He could speak to through me. It turned out my life manuscript was a romance, not with an imperfect man but with the Savior of my soul.
It is a work in progress, but as I seek to do my part, I do so knowing Christ Himself works in me, breathing His life into the new story He is creating in me. My life is now a letter from Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. (2 Cor:3:3 NIV)
Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and … be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and … put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph.4:22-24 ESV)
Valerie Ronald writes from an old roll top desk in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, with her tortoiseshell cat for a muse. A graduate of Langara College School of Journalism, she writes devotionals, fiction and inspirational prose. Her purpose in writing is to encourage others to grow in their spiritual walk.
