Exploring the Story of my life...through different eyes

 Exploring the Story of my life...through different eyes

I started writing this blog so that I would have some written record of how God brought Sam and I together. When I began to write it, the words just flowed, without much forethought or organization (and I'm sure that's obvious :D).

Because it is October 1, I am again reminded of that fateful day 22 years ago, when it was a normal day, things went as they were supposed to be and yet I was a day away from my life being forever changed, forever altered, forever...different.

I began to write the story of 'How I met Sam' just over 10 years ago. Back then I didn't really know or understand the word 'trauma' other than that was a centre at the Prince of Wales hospital near our house in Hong Kong. I didn't know about trauma as a reality within my own mind. I didn't know it was a *thing* - you know, something that shapes and changes and settles in the soul like an unwelcome guest.

I wonder how the telling of my stories will change over time. How I might tell things differently.

I've noticed something about us evangelicals (and if you're not 'us' please, read along). For one, we are painfully un-self-aware. For two, we like neat and tidy narratives. You know, the kind that have a proper beginning, an introduced conflict, a climax to the conflict, a descending resolution and all the loose ends woven in perfectly to give a lovely, satisfied, completed story. It goes like this, as I recall how I've told my story:

Sarah wants a husband. Sarah thinks that's impossible. Sarah trusts God (or thinks she does) in everything. Sarah wrestles with God over the fact that she is going to be single forever.

Sarah then experiences a horrific scene during a breakin in the middle of the night, where her parents' houseguest is brutally stabbed and tied up and knocked out, her parents are bound and gagged, and she jumps off the balcony in a dazed stupor to get the cops to sort out the mess. The house is a bloody mess. Her soul is in paralyzed shock. She trusts God through the ordeal and it seems God has dropped husband material into her lap and 5 weeks later, she agrees to marry the houseguest whose wounds have begun to heal (thanks to stitches and careful bandage dressings). God is praised for keeping everyone safe. God is shown to be powerful, good and merciful! 

Sure, Sarah has trouble sleeping every night for 6 months and ongoing into the following decade. Sure, Sarah wonders why she can't feel anything, sometimes reminding herself of her own name and identity 'I'm a Mom, I have children. Their names are...' But we don't often tell this part of the story. The messy, untidy endings don't seem to fit. 

Us evangelicals like neat packages, complete stories...Let's not muddy the waters, shall we?

I wonder what would happen if I explored this story through the new eyes I have - the eyes of a decade of reckoning with all that has gone before. Would I tell it differently? Would I tell the exciting parts and hide the deep waters my soul has nearly drowned in? Would I see the presence and action of God in a new way? Would I sense His nearness as much in the telling as I did that fateful night?

How might the exploration of my life stories come out differently if I tell it from a new vantage point - from the plateau of the mountain I've climbed thus far?

I might just take this on. This re-telling, re-exploring, re-orienting. Because this story hasn't ended, and I can guarantee it is not a neat and tidy package.

Brown paper packages, tied up with strings, these are evangelicals favourite things!!!

And for now, I will part with the tradition, and speak in the uncertain *now* - that place of unknowing, where we bring our limping selves, our wounded souls, our unresolved longings, and simply do the telling that doesn't necessarily resolve. 

The story of our selves, of our selves-in-God - this really doesn't have an ending until the end of our days, and even then, the story often has surprises we may not have known about. How many historians dig up things from records and DNA and geneologies that the person long-gone never even knew of their own selves? It does happen. So the ending is never really the ending. And while I live and breathe, I will continue to journey with open eyes to the changing viewpoint of the new horizon - to see how God is always shaping me, even in reflecting on the past.

Instead of finding comfort in the predictable and hopeful 'ending', I will find comfort in the shelter of His wings. All the unknowing I live in finds comfort in the knowing of the Lover of my soul. If unresolved conflict, or complexity that isn't explained brings you to dismay and discomfort, you are in good company. I can't say I have an answer for that - but I do know there is a comfort in feeling seen and known by One Who knows and sees all, and offers His presence as the surest form of comfort. 

If I re-tell my stories, they may be discomforting. That's my fair warning. But God will still be praised. His power and might will still be on display. And I believe it will be all the more powerful and amazing when the sub-narrative takes center-stage, and the glamorous drama takes a back-seat. It is often in the hidden places where the power of God is felt most keenly.

At least, that has been my experience. God is as real to me - or moreso - in the middle-of-the-night wakings, in the observation of how a tree grows, in the playfulness of my dogs, in the simple trust of a child - as in the dramatic events of my life.

What if I wove both of these together? 

It might be a project worth taking on. 

God help me.