Life and Other People-Related Musings
I staffed Don Miller's Storyline conference last weekend at Belmont. Not only is Storyline an important conference for writers and anyone looking to live a better life, it's also really cool because Donald Miller is there. So I volunteered. We are friends now.
What first drew me to Don's books was how honest and skeptical he was about things, and how he wrote like a true introvert (read: like me). Introversion and I have a really close relationship. I remember reading in Don Miller's books that he is an introvert too, and yet he believes people get weird when they don't interact with other people. In my experience this is totally true, but I like to keep my interaction with people at a minimum. It's too exhausting.
So anyway, I started writing the storyline of my life at the conference. I'm still only about halfway through it, but I don't think I've experienced anything so insightful before. I wrote my backstory, my ambitions, my relationships/character files, and I'm working on conflict and climactic scenes. Basically my life is a story, a movie, a book, a song, and I get to help write it.
The biggest take-away I got from Storyline is the idea that I have agency in my life. I used to think God already wrote my story, and now I have to somehow figure it out by watching "which doors he opens and closes." But now I think God is like a dad who gets out a big piece of paper and a box of crayons, sits down on the floor beside me, and says, "So, what do you want to draw?"
How cool is that??
Back to my original point about introversion.
Usually when I pick up a crayon and start drawing with God, I draw things that give me rest and make me feel comfortable. Not always, but probably a good 75% of the time. Y'all, if my life was a movie, at least 75% of the scenes would be me hanging out by myself and being introspective because I really really like doing that. It's great. Except it would be a really, really boring movie.
This morning I wrote my backstory, which is basically a timeline of my life including the positive and negative turns. And I noticed something really super surprising.
I am relational.
WHAT? Are we being serious, God? The life turns on my timeline are almost all relational?? And not only that, but all the awesome positive turns have to do with other people or forgetting about myself?
At one point last weekend, Don said on stage, "You are a people person. I'm an introvert and I hate people, but I am a people person. Even if you hate people, you are a people person." Our stories don't move along without others. Positive turns don't happen when we are at home thinking about life and listening to birds. Well, most of the time they don't.
My point is, the theme of my life is not something I anticipated. It is not "great things are accomplished when working alone." It is not "loners are cooler" or "Jesus is the only friend I need." The theme of my life is seriously "Life is found in giving life away."
The best times of my life have been the times I have forgotten about myself and given my everything to the people around me. I'm pretty sure God's story is similar. And I'm really humbled and surprised at how God is allowing me to have a story similar to his.
So I don't know, maybe you're an introvert too. Or maybe you've been hurt by people in the past and prefer to guard yourself. But I think life is almost always about other people, and our stories are better that way. I'm going to try it out and see what happens.
What first drew me to Don's books was how honest and skeptical he was about things, and how he wrote like a true introvert (read: like me). Introversion and I have a really close relationship. I remember reading in Don Miller's books that he is an introvert too, and yet he believes people get weird when they don't interact with other people. In my experience this is totally true, but I like to keep my interaction with people at a minimum. It's too exhausting.
So anyway, I started writing the storyline of my life at the conference. I'm still only about halfway through it, but I don't think I've experienced anything so insightful before. I wrote my backstory, my ambitions, my relationships/character files, and I'm working on conflict and climactic scenes. Basically my life is a story, a movie, a book, a song, and I get to help write it.
The biggest take-away I got from Storyline is the idea that I have agency in my life. I used to think God already wrote my story, and now I have to somehow figure it out by watching "which doors he opens and closes." But now I think God is like a dad who gets out a big piece of paper and a box of crayons, sits down on the floor beside me, and says, "So, what do you want to draw?"
How cool is that??
Back to my original point about introversion.
Usually when I pick up a crayon and start drawing with God, I draw things that give me rest and make me feel comfortable. Not always, but probably a good 75% of the time. Y'all, if my life was a movie, at least 75% of the scenes would be me hanging out by myself and being introspective because I really really like doing that. It's great. Except it would be a really, really boring movie.
This morning I wrote my backstory, which is basically a timeline of my life including the positive and negative turns. And I noticed something really super surprising.
I am relational.
WHAT? Are we being serious, God? The life turns on my timeline are almost all relational?? And not only that, but all the awesome positive turns have to do with other people or forgetting about myself?
At one point last weekend, Don said on stage, "You are a people person. I'm an introvert and I hate people, but I am a people person. Even if you hate people, you are a people person." Our stories don't move along without others. Positive turns don't happen when we are at home thinking about life and listening to birds. Well, most of the time they don't.
My point is, the theme of my life is not something I anticipated. It is not "great things are accomplished when working alone." It is not "loners are cooler" or "Jesus is the only friend I need." The theme of my life is seriously "Life is found in giving life away."
The best times of my life have been the times I have forgotten about myself and given my everything to the people around me. I'm pretty sure God's story is similar. And I'm really humbled and surprised at how God is allowing me to have a story similar to his.
So I don't know, maybe you're an introvert too. Or maybe you've been hurt by people in the past and prefer to guard yourself. But I think life is almost always about other people, and our stories are better that way. I'm going to try it out and see what happens.
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