He's Got This

'It's not your story. It's mine.'

These were the words that drifted down quietly from a bright blue afternoon sky as I sat reading on my back deck. The hum of a light aircraft overhead brought with it the comfort of the familiar. Of other warm, pre-summer days spent lazing and reading and hearing from God.

Behind the fence of our tiny strip of backyard grows a massive Elm tree. It's grandeur dominates the simplicity of our plain-grass-and-a-few-shrubs lawn. I watch it unconsciously throughout the year. Monitor its change from season to season. Always being surprised to find it in a different state the when I left it. This particular afternoon I wonder, when did it sprout that dense layer of vibrant foliage? I can see Summer in its wings and wonder how I never noticed until today. Last I remember it was a stretch of bare limbs against a grey sky. Now it holds all the promise of the warm season. All the regularity that I somehow, faintly understand, points back to the faithfulness of our Creator.

I'm recovering from a state of stress that had me in tears. How long will it take me to learn this lesson, I wonder? To wade through this dark night of the soul. And then, like the quiet puncture of the first evening star, come the words. Gentle but steady.
'It's not your story, its mine.'
This life of mine that I keep clutching and trying to control. It's His story. And He writes it in the language of redemption. Why do I always forget this? Why does it take the dam breaking, the bubble bursting?
This clutching business. This worrying and fretting. It needs to end.
Slowly, I think I am coming to understand.

'And He is before all things and in Him all things consist.'

Colossians 1:17