After writing that post the other day I kept asking myself those questions at the end, "What is my story? What stories do I love? What stories have shaped me? And what stories are so real to me that they whisper to me that I'm not alone?"
With all those questions it was hard to know where to begin...the questions also arise, "Is my story really worth telling? Is it worth reading? Is my story exciting enough to share...to draw people in?" When talking about this with a friend this morning I realized that hearing other people's stories is something that I love. I always consider someone else's story worth hearing or reading. I realized that, especially within the church, we often preface the telling of our life story with an apology that it is not radical or exciting. It's as though we seem to think that the ordinary cannot be great or amazing...besides isn't the pursuit of God and God's hand in our lives always amazing?
Truly with my story I often don't know where to start. It's like when someone says, "Tell me about yourself." How the heck does one answer that question!? Do they want me to tell them all about me? Do they want to know surface information or deeper information? Is it just small talk or do they really want to get to know ME? Normally when that statement is directed at me I laugh nervously and say, "What do you want to know?" When we were first friends one of my friends asked me the question , "How do you view the world?" I remember slightly panicking at that question...I had no idea how I viewed the world and what if how I viewed the world was "wrong"?! So, as you can see when someone asks me to tell my story what really follows in my head is a plethora of questions, slight panic, and the voice of insecurity. Which perhaps tells you a lot about my story right there! :)
Alright, let's begin before I procrastinate even more.
I think that stories and the stories that I love are woven into my life and into the ways that God has spoken to me. I love stories that make me feel- be it wonder, joy, heartbreak, anger, confusion, excitement, curiosity, impatience...the list goes on. I love being pulled into a story (be it written or spoken or filmed) so much that everything around me disappears and I feel a pull to go back to it when I've had to walk away. I remember reading when I was younger and truly not realizing what was going on around me...this still happens to me at times when I find a really good book. I also loved creating stories as a child, often this was with my friends through play but sometimes it was alone as I sat on the end of the dock at the cottage.
This is where I believe the story begins, me, sitting alone on a dock, eyes closed and head tilted toward the sun, breeze from the lake softly blowing across my face. I'm not sure why exactly as a child I was drawn to sit alone on the dock, though it most likely has something to do with me being an introvert. I never would have considered myself an introvert 5 years ago but looking back at this picture now it seems incredibly clear to me. When I was young I would sit on the beach at the cottage and think up stories...stories of being a pirate at sea, stories of being the first explorer to happen upon the beautiful lake in front of me, stories of being a woman who was stranded alone in the wilderness having nothing to survive on except her knowledge of edible plants (this is perhaps the most fantastical of the stories as I would die so quickly if that was the kind of knowledge I needed to survive!). As I got older I created stories of romance where a man would come and sweep me off my feet...it's funny when I created stories as a child I always saw myself as an adult in those stories. Sometimes though, I wouldn't create any stories at all, I would just sit and think or sometimes pray or sometimes do nothing at all. Thinking back on those moments still brings a sense of peace that envelops me in a way I can't describe.
I think God was quietly working away in those moments, giving me moments to just be, instilling in me a love of thinking, a love of stories, a love of analyzing, a love of quiet moments in nature. When thinking back to that moment of me as a child I think of not only a sense of peace but also a sense of wonder. Being out in this incredible world that God has created and being in the midst of "undisturbed" creation has always filled me with wonder and peace...a sense not only of how small I truly am but also that in that I am intimately known. These quiet moments of peaceful solitude happened continually throughout my life, not only at the cottage. These moments happened at camp while standing at the top of the hill late at night staring straight out into the black, pin-pricked sky. They happened sometimes while walking home from school in high school (not really "undisturbed" nature but the feeling was there. They happened when I traveled to Taiwan, England, and other areas of Canada.
In fact one of the most recent moments of this "peaceful solitude" stands out to me as a really important moment. The past 5-6 years have been some of the most growing years for me, they have also been some of the years that have felt the most silent for me in my relationship with God. I think I assumed, when starting seminary, that the opposite would be true...and at times it was. I had some fantastic professors who were passionate about the Word of God and about theology and about it's application to our lives. These professors moved me to search and find relationship with God amidst the academic study of the Bible. However, over time I found that the study of the Bible as an academic text and the analysis of the Bible in regards to theology created in me a view of God as almost purely something of academic study. The pictures and stories that once filled my head during and after my time with God, suddenly disappeared...I found that the emotional connection and relationship I had with God became dull. Now, I don't blame this entirely on being in seminary...there were other things going on in my life that contributed to this...however I do believe it was a significant contributing factor.
After graduating from seminary about a year and a half ago two of my close friends and I headed off for an adventure in the UK. While we were there we had the privilege of visiting The Lake District in England. I have never been to a more awesome, beautiful and wondrous place in my life. While walking the fells all the stories I had read about C.S. Lewis and his friends going on long walking tours were brought to mind. You can understand why so many people who walked those hills were compelled to write stories and poems. The Lake District was the birthing place of Beatrix Potters stories of Peter the Rabbit, the poems of Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge plus many more and it wasn't hard to see why. I couldn't help but imagine similar scenes all across England that would inspire stories of wonder, adventure, beauty and deep thought.
It was on one of our long daily hikes up the fell that we decided to stop and sit at the top of one of the peaks that we had reached. I cannot begin to express the beauty of that view, not the incredible wind that whipped through our hair. It was strong, but not overpowering, present but gentle. As the three of us sat there munching trail mix and apples with the sun beaming down on us more brightly than it had since we arrived in England I felt that peaceful solitude. I was reminded as well of a hymn my Dad always used to sing to us before we went to bed and that I find myself singing now to my son...
"Oh Lord my God
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.
I see the stars
I hear the rolling thunder.
Thy power throughout
the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul
My saviour, God, to thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul
My Saviour, God, to thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art."
I closed my eyes and smiled, felt the wind blow on my face and the sun soak into my skin and I felt the presence of God ever nearer than I had in quite some time. I confess I sang that hymn heartily at the top of that hill we were climbing...hopefully not to the embarrassment of my travel companions. That moment of peaceful solitude, of warm embrace, of emotional familiarity gave me hope. It gave me hope of a relationship renewed...of finding God again, of finding stories and pictures again, of finding the desire to write again. So, yes, it has been some time...but I'm here again and remembering those moments of peaceful solitude-particularly remembering THAT moment of peaceful solitude- gave me hope that I would once again be here, typing and sharing my story. Well, not just my story but the stories that run through my brain and out onto the keyboard...and some of those just happen to be my story. Thanks for sticking with me friends and for allowing me to share my love of stories with you...it's a great privilege.
With all those questions it was hard to know where to begin...the questions also arise, "Is my story really worth telling? Is it worth reading? Is my story exciting enough to share...to draw people in?" When talking about this with a friend this morning I realized that hearing other people's stories is something that I love. I always consider someone else's story worth hearing or reading. I realized that, especially within the church, we often preface the telling of our life story with an apology that it is not radical or exciting. It's as though we seem to think that the ordinary cannot be great or amazing...besides isn't the pursuit of God and God's hand in our lives always amazing?
Truly with my story I often don't know where to start. It's like when someone says, "Tell me about yourself." How the heck does one answer that question!? Do they want me to tell them all about me? Do they want to know surface information or deeper information? Is it just small talk or do they really want to get to know ME? Normally when that statement is directed at me I laugh nervously and say, "What do you want to know?" When we were first friends one of my friends asked me the question , "How do you view the world?" I remember slightly panicking at that question...I had no idea how I viewed the world and what if how I viewed the world was "wrong"?! So, as you can see when someone asks me to tell my story what really follows in my head is a plethora of questions, slight panic, and the voice of insecurity. Which perhaps tells you a lot about my story right there! :)
Alright, let's begin before I procrastinate even more.
I think that stories and the stories that I love are woven into my life and into the ways that God has spoken to me. I love stories that make me feel- be it wonder, joy, heartbreak, anger, confusion, excitement, curiosity, impatience...the list goes on. I love being pulled into a story (be it written or spoken or filmed) so much that everything around me disappears and I feel a pull to go back to it when I've had to walk away. I remember reading when I was younger and truly not realizing what was going on around me...this still happens to me at times when I find a really good book. I also loved creating stories as a child, often this was with my friends through play but sometimes it was alone as I sat on the end of the dock at the cottage.
This is where I believe the story begins, me, sitting alone on a dock, eyes closed and head tilted toward the sun, breeze from the lake softly blowing across my face. I'm not sure why exactly as a child I was drawn to sit alone on the dock, though it most likely has something to do with me being an introvert. I never would have considered myself an introvert 5 years ago but looking back at this picture now it seems incredibly clear to me. When I was young I would sit on the beach at the cottage and think up stories...stories of being a pirate at sea, stories of being the first explorer to happen upon the beautiful lake in front of me, stories of being a woman who was stranded alone in the wilderness having nothing to survive on except her knowledge of edible plants (this is perhaps the most fantastical of the stories as I would die so quickly if that was the kind of knowledge I needed to survive!). As I got older I created stories of romance where a man would come and sweep me off my feet...it's funny when I created stories as a child I always saw myself as an adult in those stories. Sometimes though, I wouldn't create any stories at all, I would just sit and think or sometimes pray or sometimes do nothing at all. Thinking back on those moments still brings a sense of peace that envelops me in a way I can't describe.
I think God was quietly working away in those moments, giving me moments to just be, instilling in me a love of thinking, a love of stories, a love of analyzing, a love of quiet moments in nature. When thinking back to that moment of me as a child I think of not only a sense of peace but also a sense of wonder. Being out in this incredible world that God has created and being in the midst of "undisturbed" creation has always filled me with wonder and peace...a sense not only of how small I truly am but also that in that I am intimately known. These quiet moments of peaceful solitude happened continually throughout my life, not only at the cottage. These moments happened at camp while standing at the top of the hill late at night staring straight out into the black, pin-pricked sky. They happened sometimes while walking home from school in high school (not really "undisturbed" nature but the feeling was there. They happened when I traveled to Taiwan, England, and other areas of Canada.
After graduating from seminary about a year and a half ago two of my close friends and I headed off for an adventure in the UK. While we were there we had the privilege of visiting The Lake District in England. I have never been to a more awesome, beautiful and wondrous place in my life. While walking the fells all the stories I had read about C.S. Lewis and his friends going on long walking tours were brought to mind. You can understand why so many people who walked those hills were compelled to write stories and poems. The Lake District was the birthing place of Beatrix Potters stories of Peter the Rabbit, the poems of Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge plus many more and it wasn't hard to see why. I couldn't help but imagine similar scenes all across England that would inspire stories of wonder, adventure, beauty and deep thought.
It was on one of our long daily hikes up the fell that we decided to stop and sit at the top of one of the peaks that we had reached. I cannot begin to express the beauty of that view, not the incredible wind that whipped through our hair. It was strong, but not overpowering, present but gentle. As the three of us sat there munching trail mix and apples with the sun beaming down on us more brightly than it had since we arrived in England I felt that peaceful solitude. I was reminded as well of a hymn my Dad always used to sing to us before we went to bed and that I find myself singing now to my son...
"Oh Lord my God
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.
I see the stars
I hear the rolling thunder.
Thy power throughout
the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul
My saviour, God, to thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul
My Saviour, God, to thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art."
I closed my eyes and smiled, felt the wind blow on my face and the sun soak into my skin and I felt the presence of God ever nearer than I had in quite some time. I confess I sang that hymn heartily at the top of that hill we were climbing...hopefully not to the embarrassment of my travel companions. That moment of peaceful solitude, of warm embrace, of emotional familiarity gave me hope. It gave me hope of a relationship renewed...of finding God again, of finding stories and pictures again, of finding the desire to write again. So, yes, it has been some time...but I'm here again and remembering those moments of peaceful solitude-particularly remembering THAT moment of peaceful solitude- gave me hope that I would once again be here, typing and sharing my story. Well, not just my story but the stories that run through my brain and out onto the keyboard...and some of those just happen to be my story. Thanks for sticking with me friends and for allowing me to share my love of stories with you...it's a great privilege.
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