Stories
“Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.”
-Fanny Crosby
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
-1 Peter 3:15 (NIV)
"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
- G.K. Chesterton
A few years ago, I started attending Flatirons through a former roommate. He was friendly and extroverted, which helped balance out my introspective personality. Time after time, I'd hear stories of people he'd met or watch him meet people and ask, “So what's your story?” I learned that “What's your story?” is a much more open-ended question than “Where are you from?” or “What do you do?” and gets far better answers. As I frequented Flatirons, it seemed like “What's your story” was almost up there with “come and see”, “me too” and “love God and love people”. This says something about the social mentality of the church. My Jesus is like that, too. He wants to hear my stories, even though I've told them before and will tell them again when I forget. Jesus even taught in stories. Stories must be important.
Stories. Sometimes our culture is addicted to the stories of others as portrayed by television or movies. I've watched a lot of movies lately. I've not kept count but I think I've watched almost four dozen movies in the last four months. Honestly, it started as a way to temporarily check out of my life that ached in favor of a different life either worse or better (depending on whether I was in a horror mood or not). It was a quick easy way to numb my hurt, spending quality time with others, and expend little to no effort. Gradually, God and I worked the ache out of my life, but the established habit of movies stayed.
A few weeks ago, I was pondering a page from my long-offline website where I described some of my favorite movies and what put them towards the top of my list. One common thread was that all of them had a compelling story that had some aspect I felt would apply to my life. Stories, stories. Where would our lives be without stories?
Earlier this year, my small group was discussing reasons why we write. A “personality test” I took at work highlighted a unique combination in my life that made perfect sense after some consideration. I'm driven by learning new things, and yet often share facts or morals in the framework of a story. If you haven't noticed, I tell stories on my blog and sometime they even have morals. So why do I write? Allow me to highlight one reason by an illustrating the effect from an opposite perspective. In a story, of course.
When my life fell apart earlier this year, one of the people I looked to for counsel was my friend Marie. Why? Because I knew Marie's story. I knew that she'd walked through nasty ugly stuff like I was digging through and would understand what I was trying to say. I've also seen God take broken things in the lives of those around her and redeem them for good. As I unloaded my story to Marie, I came to terms with my life in my own head. Also, as I was hoping, she was able to offer Godly counsel from an outside perspective. Yes, I'm alluding to a story I'm not telling here. Why am I not sharing that? Firstly, it was about seven thousand words when I finished. Secondly, it was deeply personal at the time and I'm not putting that much of my life out here publicly. Lastly, I wrote it several months ago, and God has brought me to a place that is almost night-and-day different so it would have to be rewritten anyway.
I hope that someone can read through my random stories, somehow see God and think “hey, maybe my life can be redeemed like his stuff.” Who says Chesterton’s dragons have to be real flesh and blood? They can be ideological dragons. I hope that somehow some can see how I slew my dragons and be encouraged.
My stories often don't seem relevant to anyone besides me, but that other Flatirons theology of “me too” is far more true than I usually take time to remember. It just means that everyone's life is messed up, so the best thing to do is come alongside each other rather than throwing rocks at other people.
Some of my friends, after reading my rough draft, pushed me hard - “Dude, there's a story inside that's trying to get out. Just let it out.” It would have been helpful if they would have helped clarify what in the world they were talking about, but life is nothing without a bit of mystery, I guess.
Maybe it's the dragon-slaying stories that I'm supposed to tell – “check out what I was victorious over!” It'd be more altruistic if I was trying to point out the dragons to others - “here be dragons” in the idiom of maps from bygone days. Maybe that's true too. There's lots of stories I could tell, but would you (rhetorical you) listen?
I have some friends who are telling their stories or working through their stuff; I encourage you to continue. Somewhere in the wings are people like me who are cheering you on as you slay your own dragons. We're watching new growth in your life even though you may not see it. I know this because I’ve seen those people in my life. I know this because I strive to be that person for others. Time will tell how much of “what I strive for” is true and what my story will actually be.
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.”
-Fanny Crosby
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
-1 Peter 3:15 (NIV)
"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
- G.K. Chesterton
A few years ago, I started attending Flatirons through a former roommate. He was friendly and extroverted, which helped balance out my introspective personality. Time after time, I'd hear stories of people he'd met or watch him meet people and ask, “So what's your story?” I learned that “What's your story?” is a much more open-ended question than “Where are you from?” or “What do you do?” and gets far better answers. As I frequented Flatirons, it seemed like “What's your story” was almost up there with “come and see”, “me too” and “love God and love people”. This says something about the social mentality of the church. My Jesus is like that, too. He wants to hear my stories, even though I've told them before and will tell them again when I forget. Jesus even taught in stories. Stories must be important.
Stories. Sometimes our culture is addicted to the stories of others as portrayed by television or movies. I've watched a lot of movies lately. I've not kept count but I think I've watched almost four dozen movies in the last four months. Honestly, it started as a way to temporarily check out of my life that ached in favor of a different life either worse or better (depending on whether I was in a horror mood or not). It was a quick easy way to numb my hurt, spending quality time with others, and expend little to no effort. Gradually, God and I worked the ache out of my life, but the established habit of movies stayed.
A few weeks ago, I was pondering a page from my long-offline website where I described some of my favorite movies and what put them towards the top of my list. One common thread was that all of them had a compelling story that had some aspect I felt would apply to my life. Stories, stories. Where would our lives be without stories?
Earlier this year, my small group was discussing reasons why we write. A “personality test” I took at work highlighted a unique combination in my life that made perfect sense after some consideration. I'm driven by learning new things, and yet often share facts or morals in the framework of a story. If you haven't noticed, I tell stories on my blog and sometime they even have morals. So why do I write? Allow me to highlight one reason by an illustrating the effect from an opposite perspective. In a story, of course.
When my life fell apart earlier this year, one of the people I looked to for counsel was my friend Marie. Why? Because I knew Marie's story. I knew that she'd walked through nasty ugly stuff like I was digging through and would understand what I was trying to say. I've also seen God take broken things in the lives of those around her and redeem them for good. As I unloaded my story to Marie, I came to terms with my life in my own head. Also, as I was hoping, she was able to offer Godly counsel from an outside perspective. Yes, I'm alluding to a story I'm not telling here. Why am I not sharing that? Firstly, it was about seven thousand words when I finished. Secondly, it was deeply personal at the time and I'm not putting that much of my life out here publicly. Lastly, I wrote it several months ago, and God has brought me to a place that is almost night-and-day different so it would have to be rewritten anyway.
I hope that someone can read through my random stories, somehow see God and think “hey, maybe my life can be redeemed like his stuff.” Who says Chesterton’s dragons have to be real flesh and blood? They can be ideological dragons. I hope that somehow some can see how I slew my dragons and be encouraged.
My stories often don't seem relevant to anyone besides me, but that other Flatirons theology of “me too” is far more true than I usually take time to remember. It just means that everyone's life is messed up, so the best thing to do is come alongside each other rather than throwing rocks at other people.
Some of my friends, after reading my rough draft, pushed me hard - “Dude, there's a story inside that's trying to get out. Just let it out.” It would have been helpful if they would have helped clarify what in the world they were talking about, but life is nothing without a bit of mystery, I guess.
Maybe it's the dragon-slaying stories that I'm supposed to tell – “check out what I was victorious over!” It'd be more altruistic if I was trying to point out the dragons to others - “here be dragons” in the idiom of maps from bygone days. Maybe that's true too. There's lots of stories I could tell, but would you (rhetorical you) listen?
I have some friends who are telling their stories or working through their stuff; I encourage you to continue. Somewhere in the wings are people like me who are cheering you on as you slay your own dragons. We're watching new growth in your life even though you may not see it. I know this because I’ve seen those people in my life. I know this because I strive to be that person for others. Time will tell how much of “what I strive for” is true and what my story will actually be.
Labels: life
posted by The student of life at 9:58 PM
2 Comments:
That Chesterton quote is one of my all-time, hands-down favorite quotations.
Your posts always make me think.
I love hearing your stories through your blog and in person. That is definitely a gift God has given you. Thank you for sharing your stories.
Reading your posts gives me a bit of a push to write my own. But it has yet to overcome the figurative mass of my laziness. That laziness is there for a good reason though, because it takes me a long time and lots of effort to put words on the screen, and not just words, but words I am satisfied with and my perfection complex is satisfied with. This all means that when I do write, it is worth writing. But it's infrequent enough that I don't have a blog to put it on, they are mostly kept in a pile of Word files on my computer. =)
Anyways, thanks for being inspiring. =)
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