Stories

I’ve spent most of the past month with my nose stuck in a book, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love reading. I love being transported into a different world and different story. I love the emotions a good book can pull out of you. I love seeing small details from early pages come back in big ways in later ones. I love falling in and out of love with characters and watching them develop. I love predicting an ending only to be proven wrong, for an even better one to come about.

I’ve been rereading a series I love lately, and I’m noticing sweet details I didn’t catch during my first time reading it; my heart is aching more as I watch characters struggle and grow throughout the pages.

I’ve also been reading the Bible chronologically this year, and I get the same ache in my chest as I see God working in the pages; He’s setting up kings and deposing of them, He’s speaking through prophets, He’s loving His people even as they turn their backs on Him. Honestly, it’s hard to read sometimes because it’s hard to stomach wrath and war and discipline. But, I know the end of the story! I know that all things work together in the end for our good and God’s glory.

To me, a good story has twists and turns and highs and lows and dreams being chased and risks being taken and challenges being overcome. To me, a good story has a happy ending, so I can ride the emotional rollercoaster knowing that in the end, all things will work out. Authors are astounding, the way they can build worlds and stories and characters and subplots and tie everything together. I think reading has given me a new appreciation of the highs and lows and chapters in my life. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am so glad that God is the author of my story and I’m not.

Any minute I didn’t spend reading this week, I spent time reflecting on the past year and preparing for the coming one. And I can’t help but get emotional at this story I get to live.

A year ago, I was staring at an empty suitcase, trying to bring myself to pack for the two-year adventure I was a few days away from embarking on. I was in denial—not because I didn’t want to move to Italy, but because I was nervous and it just didn’t feel real. I was nervous that something would fall through and it wouldn’t work out. I’d written a narrative in my own head that was full of anticlimactic events and worst-case-scenarios. But God had a better narrative written. He’s made my story one of beautiful friendships with characters I couldn’t have even dreamt up; one of adventures and travels to places I didn’t know existed; one of learning and growing in ways I didn’t know I needed. It seems like every page I turn, He gives me more than I can ask or imagine.

Today, I once again find myself staring at an empty suitcase… but this time instead of packing for two years, I’m packing for two months. In a few days I will be leaving for Portugal!! For the coming weeks I will be doing a harvest internship there, living with two other girls from my program and working at one of their family’s wineries. I’m so excited! Even in my wildest dreams I would never have been moving to Portugal to learn how to make wine from one of the top women winemakers in the world! I truly cannot wait to see what this next chapter holds.

Verses that go with todays post:

• Ephesians 3:20

• Psalm 84:11

• Romans 8:28

• Matthew 6

& lots of others :)