Telling Stories

Coming to love your own life requires you to believe that the past is God's will...ultimately written for both his glory and your participation in his redemption...He uses pain and brokenness, just as he uses shalom. (To Be Told, p. 126)

A good editor draws out what is not said in order to give life to what was aborted before it saw the light of day. We need friends who will name what is unnamed in our story, so that the truth is told. A good editor also helps to ensure that we don't edit out the truth. And a good editor helps us consider the implications of what our story tells us about ourselves. (To Be Told, p. 133)

My story will compel me to plead, shout, and cry at God's injustice, lethargy, and disregard. But in the mddle of my rage, I can't help but wonder at what kind of God would bear my contempt and not retaliate. How could he dure my haggling, let alone alter his plan to coincide with mine? In the face of such inconceivable grace, I can't help but fall at his feet with incredulity. The Almighty, Sovereign, Cator God is also the most humble Being we will ever know. And engaging in naked prayer with our humble God humbles us. But what hubles us most is the enormity of his love for us.
It is in surrendered silence that God speaks love. It is when I have brought to him the shredded strands of my story--when I am ashamed, angry, defiant, and afraid--that he calls me to hear what can be written but can't be explained. He speaks love. (To Be Told, p. 180, 181)

When I think of fasting, I would define it as abstaining from anything that fills the space inside us that God longs to occupy. Any idols can fodder for fasting: TV, e-mail, food. The heart of a fast is stepping back from life as it is and conceiving life as it could be. Heather Webb (To Be Told, p. 183)

I just finished reading Dan Allender's book, "To Be Told." I have quoted it a couple of times in earlier posts. I pulled the book back off my shelf to finish it in an attempt to get back on track with writing my story.

I sat with my fingers poised on the keyboard for several minutes, waiting for something to come out. I listened to my family, playing downstairs with Asher. I heard Nelson talking with Ron about the basketball and baseball game and wanted to rush down and add a tidbit to the conversation that I had heard on ESPN. Beth was trying to fix supper and Asher was growing impatient. I could rush down and rescue her...and him from her wrath. But I glued my butt to the chair. I need to be here.

Telling my story. That reminded me of the early days of June 1989. I had completed an introductory course in CPO (Clinical Pastoral Orientation) at seminary in Kansas City. I loved it. I decided that I needed to go further and applied for the summer CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit being offered at the same hospital. I was accepted--chosen. I was really excited.

One of the first things the group of chaplains did was meet at the SIT (supervisor in training) house for a get acquainted session. Our first task was to tell our story, as a way of introducing ourselves and getting our "stuff" out there. In typical Daisymarie fashion: I offered to go first. I told my story chronologically, plodding through the many moves I made during my childhood and early adulthood. I lifted out the salient lessons of each place. I thought I did I okay. Oddly, the group pointed out that there were very few pieces of my childhood and that there was a real disconnection. Later I likened it to beads on a string: they were connected by a thread that was unseen, but separated from each other--barely touching each other.

I listened as the others (there were six of us in the group) told there stories. In my mind I graded them. I felt good about my presentation until the last young woman presented her story. She was a violinist. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do in ministry, wasn't really sure why she was in seminary at all. She was quite thin and petite. She seemed to totally captivate the SIT. I was totally jealous of her ease and grace. She told her story in third person. It was so connected, but somehow separated from her, as if it was something she looked at but not who she was. She held it like a fine porceline doll, that you could admire but never play with for fear of breaking it. I envied her style. I envied her story. I knew we would never be friends. She represented so many things I wanted to be, but knew I couldn't be.

That was my first experience telling my story. Or so I thought. Not long ago, I was going through old files and I found a paper I had written for a college psychology course. It was crude and poorly written, but it was again a retelling my story. I had forgotten all about it. The thing that jumped out at me the most was how much that telling was repeated in the later CPE experience. So in a paper written when I was about 19 I lifted up themes and feelings that were echoed in the story of a a 32 year old. I grieved, and I grieve the wasted opportunity to reflect and grow. I grieved the lost connections.

Now here I sit at 50 and I realize that I'm needing to understand that story. My story needs understood and shared because what I have experienced has a purpose. I need to learn how to tell it, because it is not just my story, but God's story, too.