Hey there, friend!

I’m what you might call a word nerd, a bookworm in every sense of the term. I open each new book with a tingle of excitement because it means I’m about to embark on yet another (hopefully) great adventure.

As the story unfolds on the pages, I picture each scene in my head. I know what the characters’ voices sound like, what they each look like, and what makes up the core of who they are. But sometimes I run into a problem.

Sometimes an author will reveal information about a character that runs contrary to what I’ve already envisioned, and I. Don’t. Like it. Not one little bit. But I have to replace my vision with that of the author’s because only the author gets to decide the truth of the characters created.

Does this mean I can’t have an opinion? No. But my opinion can never outweigh the truth.

And as much as this concept applies to fictional characters, it applies even more so to the real us. Because we, too, have an Author, and it’s none other than God Himself, Creator of the universe AND each of us.

Our Author has a LOT to say about who and what we are. It’s when we don’t know and believe that Truth, we begin to fall prey to the opinions of others and allow ourselves to be covered in labels that don’t actually fit, like these shared by Lysa in Chapter 4:

“You aren’t wanted.”
“You aren’t accepted.”
“You aren’t pretty enough.”

I suspect you could add some statements of your own to this list. I know I could. But as we’re reminded on page 64:

"We must let God's Word become the words of our story."

Yes! Because, you see, GOD’S Word, the Bible, contains the Truth of who we are.

The world may say we’re all alone, but GOD says He will be with us always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

The world may say we’ll never amount to anything, but GOD says we are His handiwork, created to do good works He prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

The world may say we’re not worth it, but GOD says we are SO worth it that He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross so we could be made right with Him and spend all of eternity with Him. (John 3:16)

THIS is the Truth of who we are! And I’m barely scratching the surface here. There are SO many more nuggets of truth tucked into Scripture just waiting to be unearthed.

Let’s fill our hearts and minds with these truths so even in the most difficult chapters of our story, we’ll be ready to speak into them the truth of what GOD says!

Stacy