I love to watch the PBS show Finding Your Roots. Watching as famous people's ancestry is revealed and stories are told, I am transfixed. The stories do not have to be fantastic, though some are, they just have to connect people with those who came before them. This same fascination draws me to the stories of the old testament.
The stories are of real people, broken, bruised, and often self-centered, who find God in spite of themselves. To think, despite how messy they are, God chose the descendants of Abraham to be a light in the world. His light. God tested Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, called Moses, and finally became human because he loves us above all he created.
If he did all this, regardless of their all-around-shadiness, surely we can all believe God loves us just as much even when we have been just as shady as our ancestors.
Like Job, we can cry out to God. He will hear us. We can pour out our sorrow, our despair, our anguish. He will hear us. We can sit in silence. He will hear us. He knows our story, whether we bear fruit or thorns. He knows how fantastic we are in our ordinariness. He wants to help us write the rest of our story.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Amen.
