What's Your Story?

Well. It has been a long time since I've been here. Long time in the blog world, but I guess only two weeks in real time. For those of you who don't know, the blog world is like dog years where a single day equals something like a hundred. All that to say it feels like this little corner needs a good dusting, and since I'm feeling a lot out of sync with my words I'm going to jump back in with a 31-day writing party.

Go big or go home, right?

Every October there's something on the Internet called the Write 31 Days Challenge, where writers pick a topic and write one post on that topic every day of the month. (you'll find details here). In conjunction with that Kate Motaung (host of Five Minute Friday) will be posting 31 days of five minute free write prompts to help motivate and inspire us to stay the course. Her theme? 31 Days to Telling Your Story...because we all have one.

I'll just say right off the bat, mine will be more like a 20-day writing party because I know me and I know my calendar. Case in point it's October 2nd so I'm already a day behind. Or right on track if I aim for 20 so 20 it is. Some of my posts will be true five-minute entries, some will be more. I'm giving anyone who wants to try it permission to do the same.

Today's one word prompt-story

What's my story? I'm not so sure these days. This middle age thing is trickier to navigate than I had anticipated. Question-am I still middle aged?

I'm going to say yes. The first half of our lives are pretty well defined, or at least mine was. College-work-marriage-work-babies-work-volunteer-teenagers-volunteer-launch young adults out into the world-now what?

Yes, now what?

Technically we fall into the 'retired' category except we're young. Ish. Young to be retired anyway. Too young. Life is flying by and I just want to hit the pause button for a minute while we catch our breath and take stock of where we are and where we've been and where in the world we're going.

Have you ever read a book and somewhere in the middle lost sight of how the main character arrived in the place they are now? When you do it helps to go back and re-read earlier chapters in order to make sense of the present.

Stories are composed of five different elements-setting, character, plot, conflict, and theme. A good author weaves these elements together in ways the reader might not have anticipated. He keeps the story moving forward until the very last page. While I too often want to be the sole author of my own story I can read back through earlier chapters and find myself there.  Not as the author, but as the main character in a story not yet finished.

God is writing my story in ways I cannot predict but know I can trust. He has plunked me down in settings too numerous to mention, peopled the plot with characters and conflict and an overarching theme of His amazing grace.

With every turn of the page He is growing the main character into the person He created her to be.