One day, for a change, I turned on my television—something I seldom do—and watched part of a movie that I had never seen before. And I am so glad that I did, because there was a line of dialogue at the end that really rang true to me. It just kept whirling around inside my head, and I even wrote it in my journal so that I would not forget it. Here’s the line: “No man can walk out of his own story.” This quote just kept speaking to me.

My own story. My own story? At that time, I did not want to walk my own story. I wanted to be someone else and live her story, not mine. I did not want to be the one who had been molested as a child, and who still lived with the effects. I did not want to be the mother of a child who also had been molested and who was struggling with her own issues. I did not want that story! I wanted the story in which only good things had happened to us and continued to happen to my children and me. I wanted to rewrite my story and then to run and jump right into it. But alas, that happy story was not for me.

For some reason God had allowed me to live a story that was filling me with heartache and despair. And I cannot, no matter how much I would like to, walk out of my own story. But one thing that I can do is to choose how to respond and react to my story. That is something that I can change. I alone can change my attitudes and thoughts concerning the things that trouble me. I alone can choose not to dwell on the negative, but to change my mindset to the positive and remember all the good things that are a part of my life, too. I know that if I were to place all the negative things and all the positive things in my life on a scale, the good would absolutely outweigh the bad. So why did I focus so much on the negative?

Romans 12:1-2 says, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (NAS).” Our world today is full of negative things. This world is Satan’s domain, and he wants to kill, steal, and destroy all that is good.

I needed to be transformed. I needed to be different from the way that I was. I needed to transform my mind and my life to what God has planned for me. Through this verse, God promises that, when I choose to renew my mind, I will find the story that God has for my life. He promises that my new story will be good and acceptable and perfect. This verse does not promise that everything that happens to me will be good and acceptable and perfect, but it does say that God’s will for my life, if I choose to live it, will be all those things.

It is hard to understand how that works. But when I choose to live and to believe the promise, then I am worshipping my God. So my choice is this: To know and believe that I am living the story that God has given me, or not to trust and believe but to grumble and complain and be unhappy. So I choose to dwell on the good that God has brought forth in my life in spite of all the hurtful things from my past. As a result, my faith has grown and my relationships are better. I have found true friends who are helping me through this journey.  These are just a couple of the wonderful positive gifts that are a part of my life now.

So, what about you? Is your mind dwelling only on the negative parts of your story? Do you want to run and jump into a different story that is not your own? Today, let us allow God to renew our minds and to show us the story that He has written just for us. He has promised that the story He gives us is good and acceptable and perfect. I want that story. Don’t you?

Blessings – Lisa