On Living a Good Story {And Maybe Why You Shouldn’t Try So Hard}

“So the question is, when the credits roll in your life, are people going to think your story sucked?” – donmilleris.com

There’s been a lot of talk about living a Good Story this past year.  I’ve read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years {and loved it}, which has been a catalyst for me in the idea that our lives are stories, played out in our years on earth.   And bloggers have written about it, and reviewers have reviewed about it, and one of my closest friends went to a conference about it, and the conversation has left me honestly questioning my own life lately.

Because sometimes I wonder if we {my husband Matt and I} have lived the dramatic story for the wrong reasons. And here’s my question– does a heroine spend the two-hours of the movie pursuing the most gloriously-dramatic film, or does a gloriously-dramatic film just naturally tumble out of her pursuit of more important things, like love, redemption, victory, the cure for cancer, that kind-of thing?

Shouldn’t a Good Story be the result, not the motivator, of an epic life, a faith worth remembering?

And here’s where I’m coming from . . .  I feel like Matt and I have gone with gusto after the wild, epic-kind-of life {or what we understood that to mean in our youthful, take-the-world-by-storm twenties}.  We read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart after college, and we were all about pursuing a career that filled our hearts and a journey that pushed the envelope of  ‘safe’.  We sold everything and moved to Saipan and then did it again to do ministry in New Zealand.  We’ve thrown ourselves into 4 businesses which took great risk {all of which have failed miserably, but that’s beside the point}.  Matt’s led trips overseas  and done edgy things that would make your grandmother nervous, in an effort to connect with teenagers.  We’ve packed up babies and a life, and moved halfway around the globe . . . for the sake of the girl in some dark room somewhere, for following where we believed God to be leading . . .

and, maybe, maybe, in part, {should I admit it?} for the sake of a more Dramatic Story.

And I think I am learning, that this final motivation, isn’t really a right one.

I had several people tell me during our recent visit to the states, “You are doing something so important.  And it just makes my life feel so behind, so normal.”

And the older I get, the more I realize that maybe the true heroes, the ones really living out brilliant stories, are the ones who never make much of a headline, anyway . . .

It’s the ex-wife who forgives her cheating ex-husband, even if he doesn’t ask for it.

It’s the daughter who takes her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother to doctor’s appointments and McDonald’s, every week.

It’s the husband who works a job he doesn’t like, for the sake of the family he loves like crazy.

It’s the man who leaves a hugely-ridiculous tip to the waitress, because he sees she’s gotta-be 8 months pregnant and there’s no ring on her finger.

And I think one of the greatest lies we can believe about our lives is that if it doesn’t have the setting and the scenes of a summer blockbuster, then it’s not really that valuable, or seeped in God-reality, or the stuff of epic-goodness. And that has to be a lie, right?

Because Mary didn’t set out to be Jesus’s mother.

And Peter was just fishing with his buddies.

And I can’t see Gandhi or Mother Theresa clawing for the spotlight at any point.

And those guys who started To Write Love on Her Arms weren’t motivated by a sprawling NGO with cool t-shirts that popular bands wear, either.

Those dramatic stories just naturally played out; I’m not so sure they were sought out, from the opening scenes, when the boat first shoved off the dock.

And maybe it’s me.  Maybe I’m the one splitting hairs that don’t really matter all that much anyway, but as I sit and think about my own story and the living of it, I wonder if I haven’t gotten a little too caught up in a quest for drama.  I wonder if I haven’t followed my own idea of a Good Story, assuming that a Good Story has to be Hollywood-epic, on par with Braveheart or The Last of the Mohicans or Titanic or something.

Because while it’s true that no one wants to order popcorn and watch a two hour depiction of a single mom working two jobs, checking her kid’s homework, forgiving the guy that abused her, slipping an extra ten into the offering plate, and cleaning the toilets on a Saturday morning, maybe that’s more the makings of a Good Story than we realize.

Or applaud.

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Thoughts on what it means to live out a Good Story in your life?  What, in dramatic or non-dramatic reality, does that look like?

Do we, especially in the Christian Community, put too much emphasis on the “dramatic” Christ-following?

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Donald Miller is one of my all-time favorite authors.  If you haven’t read Blue Like Jazz yet {Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality}, then you just gotta.