My heart ached as I put my pen to the paper, dreading what would come next.
I had to do it, but I didn’t want to.

Ink flowed out of my pen like tears streaming down my face.
The dark ink marked streaks and lines of handwriting as I
wrote the stories of their lives in my notebook.
These were the characters I created.
I shaped them into who they were through their

circumstances and surroundings

but now

things had to become harder than anything they’d ever face.

I had the choice not to do it.

With the simple swipe of a hand, their pain could disappear

into the depths of my imagination.

 

But I kept it.

 

With all my heart I wanted to erase it, but I knew.

I knew this was necessary.

Without this short hour of pain and this small time of suffering, it would be

impossible for them to become who they needed to be in the story.

It was then that it hit me.

Is this what God experiences with us?

In an infallible and perfect way,

he takes His majestic pen to the empty book of our lives

and writes.

He forms together the innermost parts of our being

and creates us to be who we are.

But what pain must he feel to write the challenges and struggles in our lives?

His pain greater than any mortal writer could feel shaping

imaginary characters.

His pain is that of a father writing suffering onto his child.

Yet He writes.

He writes because He knows it is what we need.

He knows that we can’t live without troubles, but

troubles are what shape us and what bring us closer to Him.

But in His unfathomable love, He reaches out his hand and picks us up-

gathering us in his arms

and whispers softly with a smile,

“Wait on me and I’ll carry you into the next chapter.”