If there is one thing I love about loving the Lord, I love that for each of us, it is a personal story being written, a journey with highs and lows and seasons and pro- gressions. Every day is part of that story and every moment plays its role. Every prayer and every movement of the heart unto the Lord become the words inscribed on those eternal pages, the testimony recorded forever and forever. Every tear we cry in love and longing is kept forever as part of our story, always to be remembered. David said,

“You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” (Ps. 56:8).

Oh the glory the heart feels when it connects to that real and personal story in the day to day.

I remember in my earlier days how I would spend hours journaling, hours praying and singing and documenting this story…as though chronicling my course and keeping every detail of the journey. I loved connecting to the journey and feeling the progressions of the Lord's leading of my life as I responded to Him in love. Yet in these days, at the pace and the speed of my life with three young kids and all that goes with, such long hours are not at my dispense. Every day feels a bit like a race. I find that whether I’m warmed up or not, there is a definite start to each day, a definite rigor along the way, the highs and lows, and then a certain finish line at the end. Moving at this rate, I often find my heart juggled along at rapid speed, at times as though out of breath, trying to stay connected, reaching to commune with the Lord, offering prayers and songs in fragments and pieces along the way.

The inconsistencies and ups and downs of my inner life often leave me dizzy, and though I’d love to have a clear comprehension of today’s prayer or the seamless continuation from yesterday’s song, I haven’t the ability to know or even keep track of my own heart before the Lord. One day holds a feeling of an intense hunger, the next I feel distant and far, straining to remember what it was that made me so hungry yesterday. One day I am weeping with affection for Jesus, and the next all seems quiet and silent within, at times almost dull.

If left to my perspective, it would seem that the Lord might have a hard time stringing these prayers and heart-movements together, in effort to make sense of my strewn array of affections and heart-cries. Yet this viewpoint is exactly reverse from reality. I am not the one telling the story. Jesus is. I am not the originator of one good thing transpiring in my inner life. I am not the beginning, the author, or the designer. He is. The One receiving my love is the One who gave me the very love with which to love Him. The One hearing my prayers is the One who birthed and brought forth such holy longings and petitions. Thus, what is so jumbled to me, so disjointed and unclear from day to day, is one single continuous stream to the Lord—His story being told. He sees the end from the beginning. He perceives beyond my inconstancies to the place of continuity, and understands past the tiny fragments, to the point of uninterrupted constancy.  Though I live amidst the fog of the unknown of how this moment fits or that prayer corresponds, He sees it all perfectly. Every day plays its contribution and no matter how fragmented my prayers, the Lord hears and records it all. Each like a part of a song that He is bringing together, complete with the highs and lows. The One who brought these affections forth within me, cared for the fruition of these desires, and planted deep within me these prayers, weaves every line of song into one streaming cry and every breath-prayer into one ongoing story.

Without question a story is being written. Without a doubt, He is leading me step by step on a journey of knowing Him and loving Him, of becoming wholly His. And though I may be utterly unable to connect the dots or bring together one day with the next in my understanding, I can rest assured that the pages are constantly being filled and the words written.

One very real day in my future—just as it will be for every believer—the Lord will open a book with my name on it. Page by page and line by line, He will recall to me every day, every moment, every prayer and every tear. He will draw my eye to behold the connection between the days that at the time seemed so disjointed, and He will show me how every moment had its place in this glorious tale.  Like a weaver unveiling the finished tapestry and a composer presenting the completed piece, the Lord will reveal the beauty and the masterwork of the book He so carefully authored, the story He so lovingly and brilliantly saw to completion.