MORNING GLORY 15
I love letters — both the alphabet and the kind that comes with a postage stamp. Second grade at my elementary school was the best year ever. We had the coolest job in school because we got to deliver the school mail. We could write letters and send postcards to our friends in other classes and every Tuesday a few lucky second graders sorted the mail and delivered them. I wrote letters to all my friends. And finally one day, it was my turn to deliver the mail! Looking back at those days, I see a little seed was planted for growing my passion of making cards and sharing happy words with others.
Second grade was the same year I learned to write in cursive. My teacher was left handed so she helped the handful of left handers in my class learn proper form. My handwriting today was greatly shaped by her willingness to show me a new way to look at cursive. If you’re right handed you might not know, but we left handers see the paper on which we write from a different perspective — a different side of the hand. Think about it. Your right hand writes ahead of letters, my left hand writes behind them! Pick up a pen and you’ll see what I mean. But no matter how we write — left, right, or maybe both if you’re cool like that — we’re still writing. Words are still coming onto paper. Messages are being sent.
I wonder at God’s handwriting and how wonderfully creative He displays His creation through our “chicken scratch” to calligraphy.
I find this same wonder in God’s promises. All His promises are written with vibrant life and hope; promises we can stand firmly upon in all we face. No matter how we see our circumstances today — whether we are looking forward or backward — no matter how messy or beautiful — God is sending us a message: His promises are true and straight from His heart and His Word. His story began long before ours, and He’s still writing alongside us today. Sometimes handwriting might be tricky to read; the message unclear as if we’re learning to write for the first time. (Or maybe your handwriting is just hard to read…or typing is more your thing…and that’s okay!) But there’s good news. He is teaching us as we learn to co-write with Him, no matter the form. We can’t rewrite the past, but we can begin right where we are. We can write on. We can fix our eyes on Jesus and co-write with the God who has been with us every chapter. His Name is written on our hearts. And we can write His Name to share with others.
One word has seven letters: P R O M I S E.
Two words have seven letters: G O D W I L L.
God will ___. It’s a promise from the Lord we can hold onto in every circumstance. It’s the beginning of a sentence we can trust from capital letter to punctuation.
God will…
be our God, and we will be His people. (Jeremiah 31:33)
go before us. (Psalm 59:10)
be our everlasting light and glory. (Isaiah 60:19)
fight for us. (Deuteronomy 3:22)
draw near to us. (James 4:8)
give us a new heart and spirit. (Ezekiel 36:26)
certainly hear us. (Micah 7:7)
make an everlasting covenant with us. (Jeremiah 32:40)
And so many more.
Jesus’ sacrifice was written on the cross, but death was not the end of the story. Jesus said “it is finished,” but he wasn’t talking about God’s story. Just when people thought hope was gone, God wrote new words of redemption in a grave turned garden. So we can hold onto this same hope of seven letters spelling one promise: God will. For He who calls us is faithful in every season; a firm foundation for us to abide through deserts, streams, pastures, seas, and even pandemics. He will draw us nearer to Him and write His story through us. By His grace, God will.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, it is now, and will be for ever. Amen. (taken from The Book of Common Prayer)