Hi Friends,

“Do you ever read these stories and think, what am I doing with my life?!”

My cousin and I were chatting over tacos. He and I both love to read, and we were discussing an autobiography about the life of a well-known pastor.

And after reflection, my honest answer to his question is… no. Not anymore, anyway.

It’s not that the lives of the saints or the stories of Christian “greats” aren’t inspiring or helpful. It’s just that, at this point in my life, I’m beginning to see that the astonishing details of what happened in their lives is perhaps not what qualifies as “greatness”.

Let me explain:

One of our more recent heroes in Christianity (and rightfully so) is Corrie ten Boom. Amazing woman! Incredible story (and one of my all-time favorite books).

But let’s imagine for a moment that WWII didn’t come knocking on her door in 1940 off the streets of Haarlem.

Corrie ten Boom would likely have lived the second half of her life as she lived the first: living in her childhood home above the watch shop in which she spent her days working. She probably would have continued her ministry to those in her community with cognitive disabilities.

She would have finished her life as quietly as she began it. Mostly unknown.

But a heart abandoned to God like Corrie ten Boom, like so many other believers we admire, is never unknown.

It may have taken an extraordinary moment of history for us to know her name and see her greatness, but it took no such thing for Heaven to know her well. God has taken in all the details. Seen all the sacrifice. Known the heartache and service and pouring out of love.

I’m coming to see that an ordinary life is not the handicap we often believe it to be. In fact, swelling words and grandiosity slide dangerously easily into elitism and pride because they don’t quite tell the story of our humanity accurately.

Ordinary is all we have. It’s who we really are.

Sometimes the circumstances of our birth or world events around us disrupt the “ordinary” (as WWII did for Corrie ten Boom), but we are still just us.

A heart abandoned to God responds with abandonment whether in quiet or on a world stage.

I look forward to the day the Lord makes clear what He sees in the hearts of His people.

I want to hear God tell us about His children that He knows well, but that never made it into the stories we tell.

I want to see the beauty He sees, whether their obedience played out loudly in the halls of history or not.

One day, He will tell us the stories.

And in the words of C.S. Lewis, “there will be surprises”.

–Anna