What's Your Story?

        This weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in the Handmade & Bound Book Festival. This festival was a book nerd’s dream. There were self-published authors like myself. People selling zines, which are mini books that often have hand drawn illustrations. Other vendors sold handmade paper and other scrap-booking supplies. The Nashville Origami Club also had a table. Basically, if the activity involved paper, pen, and self-sufficient creativity, there was representation at Handmade & Bound.

My table was located across from Blue Marigold Press, a company that creates handmade books. That’s right. Handmade books. I watched in amazement as a middle-aged man with ear length, brunette hair and librarian eyeglasses sewed linen pages together with needle and thread. He meticulously separated bunches of sewn pages with a tool I can only describe as a flat, plastic handle of sorts. At another point, he fed silk ribbon through slits in the sewn bunches. It was so fascinating that I found myself often distracted from my own potential customers because I wanted to watch the birth of a book.  

The vendor on my right was Thistle Farms, an organization for women with a history of violence, addiction, and/or prostitution. Thistle Farms gives these women a second chance at life by allowing them to create and sell soaps, perfumes, skin creams, candles, and paper products. The women also receive housing, medical and dental treatment, therapy, and educational training for no cost for two years in the Magdalene Program. The Magdalene Program at Thistle Farms was named for the biblical character whose life changed after she had an encounter with her Creator. Mary Magdalene was a known prostitute, but Jesus changed her story.

As the festival came to a close, I thought about the old adage “Never judge a book by its cover.” I contemplated the tables that surrounded me. To my left, I noticed how lovingly the man from Blue Marigold Press operated. Each stitch, pull, and tug meant something that would have an effect on the end product. His love and dedication reminded me of how God must see each human as He creates us. God is the faithful creator lovingly crafting each book, each person, to be a work of art.  To my right, wonderful women who had the courage to change their stories. Life may have left lasting effects on their covers, but God has allowed them to change the text of what would be.

As humans, we have little control over our covers, but we can change the story at any time. God has made us fearfully and wonderfully, but we can make the story of our lives tragic, romantic, or inspirational. The pen is in our own hands.  So what’s your story?