Two Stories

What happens when your life suddenly turns in a direction you never would have expected?

When a single thought acts as a rudder and you feel the body, the heart, the soul, turning around... facing a new direction, a new future?

When you explore new options, embrace new ideas, accept new truths.

There is always an issue of courage. Do you have the courage to take that step? To remain standing? To extend your arms in love? To walk away? To forgive?

We are all part of a story... a big story and a small story.

There is the small story. Of who we are, what we do, who we love, where we live, how we live, what we accomplish... how we fail.

This is the story so many of us get caught up in.

And we forget about the big story. The intertwining, woven pattern of a plan. A single plan. To bring children home. To save the lost, to heal the sick, the comfort the hurting. A divine plan to wrap divine arms around a precious world and draw them all close.

We figure out how to live the small story well, when we learn out part in the big one. How what we do connects to what our neighbor does, what the child in Cambodia does, what the missionary in Guatemala does.

Our hearts know these stories. Both the big and the small. And every once in a while, when caught up in our small story, we feel a stirring. We are reminded of a divine connection. A righteous thread that links us all. And sometimes we act on that. The stirring in our souls, the echo of eternity that has embedded itself in our hearts.

It is because of the big story that He knows what plans He has for us.

It is because of the big story that when I am alone and completely confused that I know there's a purpose... that this is just a step, connected to another and another, which will one day make sense.

And when I am wrapped up in who I think I am... who I think I should be... I feel that stirring. And I am reminded of who He created me to be. And I marvel at how it has taken me so long to meet this woman. Now I notice what causes me to cry, what causes my heart inside my ribs to swell.

There are two stories.

The small one is important.

The big one is made up of all the small ones.

Every single small one is an important part.