The Story of My Life

Mark Batterson wrote in his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day something along the lines of "Live you life in a way that you have stories to tell."  His point, simply enough, was that God has a story He's telling and He invites us into it.  This seems to indicate that we ought to make our choices about life based on what we can say about it at the end of the day.

I don't really like this idea.

I get it.  I just don't look at it that way.

Because what I see over and over is that our "stories" often involve other people who become objects.  If our motivation becomes telling a story, it ceases to be getting to know people.  But these people are real.

I am real.

My life isn't a story.  It's real life.

Sometimes, my day is abhorrently bland.  Somedays there is nothing to talk about when my husband walks in from work.  Nothing but losing another sock in the laundry.  Other days are more exciting.  I may have had a conversation with my neighbor, maybe even one that delved into the afterlife and opened her eyes to a new idea of Jesus.

And it is exciting, and I will tell that story.  But I don't want to have those conversations in order to tell the story.   I want to have those conversations to build a relationship with a real person with real struggles, real victories, and real emotions. Someone who is my friend, not my project.  Not the supporting character of my plot.


My life.  Her life. Your life.  They are all precious, unique things that warrant more than an ulterior motive of telling stories. 

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