My daughter and I have some favorite bedtime books. You Are My I Love You is at the top of the list.
In this sweet story, a loving parent tells her babe . . .
“I am your favorite book. You are my new lines.”
We are a military family, and slogging through this Army life, we get a practical re-write every two to four years. A new story, fresh plot lines . . .
But between the scrawling lines of new heart friends and the terse scribbles of unfinished chapters and sometimes unhappy endings . . . there is a deeper re-write in my soul.
I am repeatedly broken by reminders of my old stories. Of past sins, of the knowledge, that I am never as good as I want to believe I am. My tattered pages bear the ugly black marks of my sin, stained deep . . . and then . . .
“You are my new lines.”
I cry silent tears of relief every time I read that. I feel . . . cherished. A new creation, a new story, the lines etched on cross-cleaned parchment.
And I have a favorite Book, and He whispers His words onto pristine pages . . .
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17.
My favorite Biblical commentary, written by Matthew Henry, states the following of this passage . . . “And so great is the change the grace of God makes in the soul, that, as it follows, old things are passed away—old thoughts, old principles, and old practices, are passed away; and all these things must become new.”
New lines. Fresh ink. Grace.