out of line

at 7:00 a.m. each week day we meet at the table.

we meet at the table with messy hair, and dirty teeth. some of us are dressed for the day, and are slurping the last of our cereal.
one of us is in a pink fluffy robe.   she ignored the alarm again, and asked the morning for "just one more minuet,"  which once again turned into 5 or 10 "one more minuets."  she is stumbling through the kitchen, blinded by the light, squinting as she pours a cup of java.

it is now 7:10, and i take my seat at the table to share in togetherness with my family before the day  tugs and pulls us in different directions.  we share in togetherness with each other and with  the "Mysterious Unity from which we were derived" as we read the Bible and pray.

this is my favorite time of day.

this morning emilie lead us in our daily scripture.  she chose one verse.  as she prepared she thoughtfully considered its words, and wrote their worth to her on a 3x5 card to share with each of us.

she read...
"All the days ordained for us were written in your book before one of them came to be."  Psalm 139:16

she shared...
"to me these words mean that God has already written our lives."

 a discussion ignites around the table as share the Word. then one by on we speak of  many moments so clearly penned by God's hand that we have lived. 

we ask if we live every moment written by God, or do we sometimes step "out of line?"  do we step out of  a sentence He wrote.  do we change the adjectives that He carefully penned to describe us beautifully to now describe us tragically.  do we step off the page(s) He has written.  do we remove ourselves from entire chapters and live a story other than the one written for us. 

i know i that i step "out of line" daily. 

thankfully when i step "out of line" my story doesn't end, but instead it continues, written in Grace.

In the beginning was the Word (good news, salvation) 

and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.  

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; 

without him nothing was made that has been made. 

In Him was life (eternal life),
and that life was the light (Jesus Christ- Savior) of men. 

John 1:1-4

By God's grace and because of His immeasurable love for ALL of us, before time, God wrote a Story of redemption for you, for me.   He wrote a Savior into our stories.  A Savior that would not only give us everlasting life, but that would Redeem EVERY LINE in our stories.
(I know this first hand, as everyday He is rewriting my life.  what was once a tragedy i now read as a Love story.)

before you or i took our first breath here Jesus, the Word, was already at work rewriting all the "out of lines." wonderfully and mysteriously rewriting every wrong, every hurt, wound, scar... rewriting every mess into a beautiful, God-glorifying  Love story.

Our prayer this morning was that we would live the lives God has written for us.  When we step "out of line" may we quickly and humbly return to the Author of our lives, and back into the chapter, the paragraph, the sentence He has written.  This is my prayer for you too, friend.  May every word of   your life bring glory to God.