A Diving Bell and the Butterfly is about a man who has a massive stroke and is paralyzed completely, with the exception of one eyelid. His condition, called locked-in syndrome, has reduced his communication to one blink for yes, two for no. Someone else can read through the alphabet and when they get to the right letter, he blinks. That’s the only way he can communicate.

All in the space of a few moments, Jean-Dominique Bauby went from living a free and full life to being completely dependent on the care of others. He was literally trapped inside his own body. To the outside world, to those who didn’t know him, he was a vegetable. But his mind was still active, full of imagination and dreams and hopes.

How many are trapped inside their own past? Their own hall of shame that keeps them from expressing who they really are and being who God created them to be. How many can’t find words to describe the hurt, the pain, the rage, the despair inside? How many times have you been reduced to tears and sighs and groans?

The good news is that the Holy Spirit is a master at taking those tears and sighs and groans and articulating them into prayers. That inner voice that’s screaming on the inside while you’re wearing a mask of serenity and calmness on the outside.

You yourself are God’s love letter to the world. He will do whatever it takes to pull that masterpiece out of you. He won’t finish until your life is a poem (that’s what the word in Ephesians 2:10 literally means). One letter at a time, painstakingly, God is unfolding your story.

There have been times when my life feels like a War and Peace novel that’s taking too long to develop. But those are the best kind of books, the ones where the payoff is delayed, but comes just when you least expect it. Be patient with your life as God unfolds it over time. In the end, what comes out will leave the world speechless and take their breath away.

So, all that from me watching a French film at 10:30 pm on a Friday night on my computer. Who says I don’t know how to live?