O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thoughts from afar.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Psalm 139:1-5, NKJV
I sat with my coffee mug in one hand and rubbed my blurry eyes with the other. My Bible open on my lap. Five words scribbled out on the page in front of me sat suspended in the air.
We were made for him.
I had heard this phrase in some form a hundred times before. I had even written it down to remember it. But today, it resonated. It held new meaning.
I was made for you. And in that, lies everything.
For You formed my inmost parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:13-14, NKJV
I … was made … for you.
How many of us have had lives that didn’t turn out as we thought they would? Or at least parts of them. I’m raising my hand right now.
Maybe you are too.
We look at those around us who have the blessings we once sought for ourselves. If we just had what they had. But instead, we find ourselves single, divorced, barren, abused, betrayed. Strangled by fear or mental health issues. Weighted down by a diagnosis. The list goes on. We think … why me? Or why not me? We wish we were someone or somewhere else.
But what if we were to see our lives a bit differently — as carefully crafted stories — and everything that does or does not happen as equally valuable parts of that story?
Then maybe the abnormal and unfair things in our lives wouldn’t be a death sentence after all. But rather, a life sentence?
And if so …
Who might our stories bless because of those dreaded abnormalities?
This is indeed worth noting.
So we breathe deep and consider this new perspective. We even feel a bit free at the thought of our pain and loss having purpose.
But then — like a burglar in the shadows — shame creeps in and whispers quietly that we are those abnormalities. And that we are not worthy of the things we are lacking.
Shame seeks to hide us away with our stories.
Why?
Because our stories are powerful to overcome all that shame represents. Our stories were won at the cross where shame was scorned and silenced and defeated. So when we own our stories –- every part of them — and acknowledge they were created for us by God and held by him, we overcome the darkness of shame again and again and again.
We become part of the bigger story of redemption and grace.
So friend, embrace your story. Draw strength from it. Cherish it even. For it equips you. It is your story that qualifies you for what he has set before you. Only you can fulfill its calling. It is handmade for you by the Father. Unique and disarming.
It holds you. And the Father holds it. And the beauty of it is that we don’t have to be on the other side our story to start telling it. We can start now, right in the messy middle. Because that’s where life happens. And that’s where people need to hear that they’re not alone.
That’s where the words me too start to loosen shame’s grip and bring us out in the open, side by side, mess and all. That’s where we step into the light and start loving on one another exactly where we are and how we are. That’s what love is. And that’s what love does.
So start today. Tell just one trusted person what you’ve been holding inside. Speaking it brings out of the shadows what shame sought to hide — and gives it agency.
Someone out there may just need to hear me too from you.
