The idea of a life verse makes my heart warm as I hear people around me announce their chosen verse and the reasons behind it. Life, really, should be guided by His words and what better way to move toward that way of life then by a chosen life verse. In different seasons of life I have read the same verses and found new meaning many times. When I chose what I consider my main life verse, I didn't know near the depth to it that I have found in the years following my adopting the words from Jeremiah 29:11...
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
I was 17 and barely ready to enter the big world and my aunt and uncle wrote this verse down for me. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with life, but this verse had me sitting on a promise and I trusted it. I entered college, started new jobs, met my husband, and began a family. All along the way I fell into valleys and climbed beautiful mountains. And all along the way I read these words of hopes and good futures and looked up, reminded that He is a Father full of grace and love and good things for His glory. This verse was one of the first ever high-lighted in my Bible and to this day is the best known words I know by heart.
In my twenties filled with new wedded bliss and babies and the beginning of what is today, my heart yearned to be a life-giver. Even when I went away to college and wasn't sure about my profession, I knew very much so that someday I wanted to be a mother with a home full of little people. So once baby number one arrived, I was on the road to filling my dreams and looked forward to adding to that number. When number two didn't come and didn't come and even after losing a little one prematurely, I found myself clinging not only to my life verse for hope but also paying very close attention to the words from Proverbs 18:21..."Words kill and words give LIFE. They are either poison or fruit...you choose". I longed to carry life within me and I kept praying for God to breathe life into me. But as months and years went by, I found so often that God was asking me to be a life-giver of my own. I was so focused on carrying life that I was missing so many opportunities to give life in the circumstances God had me in. As my heart began to turn outward towards others and my home more I found grace in the idea of being a life-giver. I said this verse from Proverbs over and over to myself and as I accepted that this stage was to be filled with life, a form only God can use through me, I found peace from His words once again.
Walking through my 20's with my life verse strapped to my back gave me a starting point to walk into adulthood with a promise for what was to come. It made those first years feel like the beginning of an adventure. A hopeful adventure. One that would be filled with beauty and hard times, but amongst all of it...life-giving. His words continue to be life-giving to me. As I borrowed those words from Proverbs for so many years to guide my hopeful heart, His words set me free to be a life-giver while He breathed life into me through the only words that can...His truth and tellings. Today I get hungry for His words, for the longer I follow God's heart the more drawn I am to His words. He has come to give life and give it to the fullest...The One true life-giver.
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