Where does the story begin?

We are now in the first period of Advent, the time when we begin to wait and prepare for this season of celebration. When we reflect not only on the nativity of Christ, but how we live our lives in the waiting for his second coming.

As I paused, my first thought was, where shall I start with my readings? Where does the story begin? To my logical mind, a story should start at the beginning, but in story telling that is debatable. I have also found that it is not always that easy to identify the beginning.

In your own life, when you start to think about the events that have brought you to the point where you are now, you need to consider how far back do you go. Often you can start to see a chain, of how seemingly insignificant choices, from words that people have said or things that they have done, have all had an influence to bring you to where you are now!

This year, in the middle of all the COVID-19 chaos, I have been given the very precious gift of time. I have done more writing than ever before, but if you asked when I first started writing I would not be able to pinpoint an exact time.

William Stafford¹ was once asked in an interview, “When did you decide to be a poet?” He responded that the question was put wrongly: everyone is born a poet – a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing, he said, what everyone starts out doing. “The real question is why did other people stop?” ²

As I reflected, I could see that I have always loved words, and in one form or another I have been writing. It has been a slender thread woven through the background of my life, enabling me to do other things. For instance, to prepare Bible studies for home group or the ladies meeting. While I led my local church youth group, I wrote, short, five-minute faith talks, a sketch, a short drama, treasure hunt clues, ‘Taskmaster’ style games and quizzes. We had a FB page, where I tried to post something ‘inspirational,’ a couple of times a week. One year I did an A-Z of scripture verses with reflections on the theme of Chaos to Comfort. I just never though of it as ‘writing,’ it was just part of trying to engage, connect and build relationships with the young people.

And in a small way that summarises the Christmas message, God connecting and engaging with mankind, making a way, to draw us into a personal relationship with Himself.

And so I chose ‘the beginning’ to start my Advent readings:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5

John starts his description of Jesus at the beginning, not at Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem but from the beginning of time. By imitating the wording in Genesis chapter one, he points us to the deity of Jesus – His eternal power and authority, that He was One with God at the beginning of Creation.

The Word, the creative power of God, revealed His plan and purpose as He spoke this world into being. Jesus then came, to speak and reveal God’s plans and purposes to us, to the people of the world, from His birth, His life and ultimately His death.

As we consider this, we can begin to see the wonder of God’s plan woven throughout scripture. God at work, weaving together the details of the global, eternal picture, through the separate strands of individual people’s lives. God is attentive to the smallest detail and yet, at the same time, is fulfilling His plans and purposes for nations and generations to come.

We may have to wait to see how God has worked through our lives this year. Right now it may be too difficult or too painful, to be able to see that thread, but it is there…. He is attentive to the details of our lives.

We can wait, trusting that God knows the beginning, the middle, and the end of our story, because He is the Author. Right now, He is leading us forwards into the next chapter!

¹William Stafford ‘Writing the Australian Crawl’

²Quote taken from ‘Run With The Horses’ by Eugene Peterson.

Sharon Hazel has always been actively involved in her local church, with a love for Bible study and sharing from God’s word with different groups. She is a wife and mother of two ‘grown-up’ sons and is embracing a new season of her life. Sharon receives inspiration from the beauty of the coastline where she lives in Wales and blogs at https://limitless-horizon.com. She works part-time as a civil servant and divides what remains between her horse, two Jack Russell dogs and a newly developed love for gardening.