Your Backstory

Every character that you read about or watch on TV or in the movies has a past.  A past that shaped them into the person that you are seeing or reading about.  They have a backstory; a history. They have lived through events and experiences that taught them how to act or made them believe a certain way. These pasts, that we rarely see, are what make the characters believable and easy to connect with.

We as real people have a backstory as well.  We may have grown up in a similar way or maybe we grew up in extremely different circumstances but we have a past that has formed and shaped us into the person we are today.

Yesterday at lunch, my mother described to me what happened on the day I was born.  She explained it in great detail.  She told me how she felt leading up to my birth and how nervous she and my dad were as young, soon to be parents.  At the hospital, my dads parents were there but her parents were out of town and they had no way to get in touch with them since cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. She told me that I was born on a Sunday at 8:30 PM and that I came into this world butt first.  This was the first episode of my backstory and I can’t imagine a better way to start, than by mooning the world.

I believe that God had everything to do with our backstories.  We didn’t have the past we had by accident.  It wasn’t just a random series of events.  He planned our backstory meticulously.  After all, He is the author and perfecter of our faith.  He knew exactly how to lead us to Him.  He planned every detail. Our actions and reactions. The people he placed in our lives.  Hardships and happiness.  Failures and triumphs.  All of these things were a series of events that led us to him.

But our story isn’t over yet.  It’s still being told.  Perhaps we are a part of someone else’s backstory or maybe we have a spectacular sequence of events that hasn’t been told yet.  Maybe God is still writing the next chapter.  But our story will play out like it is supposed to, by His design.

How is your story playing out?