Stories

At the beginning of the month at drama practice we watched Donald Miller's talk from a conference he was at a few years ago. He talked about story-basically what he covers in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (an excellent book-I highly recommend it). I'll try to put this in a nutshell (try being the keyword here). He discusses what he learned about creating a story while trying to turn his memoir Blue Like Jazz into a movie. He and the writers of the movie tweaked his story into something that would be worth watching in a theater until there were parts that did not remotely resemble his actual story. And through a series of excellent points and examples, he inspires the viewer/reader to live a story that would be worth telling to others or worth watching on the big screen. He talks about how the strength of the hero of the story can be found in what would be lost if he or she died and did not get to complete what he/she had set out to do.

I walked away from that night convinced that I needed to pursue a certain avenue to make my life a story worth telling. It would involve following a path that I've seen be very rewarding for others. But over the last few weeks I've begun to wonder if maybe doing that would simply be trying to live out the stories of those others rather than making my own. And I've seen enough movie remakes to know that it doesn't always work to try to make the same story happen again (Clash of the Titans anyone?)

While I don't know exactly what the next chapter of my life is going to look like, I started thinking about what the previous chapters of my life have looked like. Most of them I'm proud of. I've been to a number of countries where I've held orphans, built houses, cleaned out warehouses, and showed the love of Jesus in a variety of other ways. I have stories to tell of school and church, and adventures in substitute teaching. 

But there is a chapter that up until this week I wished I could cut from the story. At a time in my life when I thought little of myself I chose to date a guy who did not respect me or treat me the way, as a daughter of the King, I deserve to be treated. I lost weight-a lot of weight, I was stressed, and my relationship with my family suffered. It took a long time for me to connect all of these factors together. 

Anyway, this week through an interaction with a student at my internship, I saw my story a little differently. I could relate to a student who is going through a difficult situation because of this chapter in my story. As I drove home from my internship that day I thanked God for the first time for that chapter. I have a desire to work with students who are troubled in one way or another, but I have a hard time relating to many of their situations. This week I realized that I can use that chapter in my story as a blessing to connect with some of my students.

"In God's hands your mistakes aren't open cuts, they're healed scars that tell stories of hope other people need to hear." ~John Acuff