Your Life: A Message in a Body
How well do you know yourself? How much of your story do you own? How much of your story owns you?
You don’t just have stories, you are a story. Your story is wrapped around your soul and carried by your body.
You have been accumulating stories for as long as you can remember. Even if you can’t remember all your stories, your life as you live it is your story.
It’s your own. One of a kind, with a handprint that also touches the lives and hearts of others.
There’s no one like you.
The Bible Affirms Life
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.”
Paul wrote to the Corinthians 2 letters. In his second letter, he refers to the lives of converts as letters––their lives changed by the gospel––then being read by others. What Paul seeks to convey to these believers reminds each of us that other people pay attention to how we live our lives even if we don’t.
As observers of other people’s stories, we think we know more than we do about their lives. We speculate, form opinions, cast doubts, often to eclipse the doubts we have about ourselves.
That’s natural. Only you and I don’t have to let our lives be governed by the opinions we think others have.
Read and write your own story.
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
While it has been on my mind and in my heart to write a book-length memoir, I’ve written enough to know how daunting it is to think through and write down––one word after another––to record thoughts and memories that somehow, someday, or in some way, might benefit someone else.
To sandwich words between the covers of a book is only one aspect of writing. There’s editing before publishing, and if like me you read the acknowledgments of almost any well-written book, the author always has lots of people to thank for their help.
Now I wonder if I might encourage, point people to resources on how to write about their life.
To see value in telling your story. For your story is as unique as your DNA and fingerprints.
There will never be another YOU.
Some of the books I have read, influencing my belief that writing about your life matters.
While not everyone wants to write a book, most people do want to tell their stories.
Your goal as a writer of your story is to sound like yourself.
Taking time to see your life beyond the details of daily living makes you a witness as well as the main character in your story.
“Writing is a second chance at life.” [1]
Pieces start to fit. You see reasons for what seemed unreasonable when at the time you endured some things, or when you achieved some things, or even when you suffered unjustly.
What you write out of your story may serve to nourish others, strengthen them for their own journey, while also giving you the opportunity to appreciate overlooked provision, guidance, and miracles throughout your life.
When I think about Jane Austen writing books––longhand using a quill pen and ink, piecing together scraps of notes she took while both living and observing life––You and I have come a long way baby. No excuses!
Unprecedented access to writing tools includes recording apps on your phone or computer, word processor software, and writing aids that manage spelling, grammar, and structure (if that’s important to you). There’s even affordable options for formatting both digital and print copies of books. Pages can be uploaded, printed and bound at local printing services, places like Office Depot and FedEx.
Yes, you can do this.
“I’m awfully interested in how big things begin. You know how it is; you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions . . . then whissh! you’re seventy. You’ve been a lawyer for fifty years and that white-haired lady by your side has eaten over 50,000 meals with you. How do such things begin?”
In the play Our Town, Thornton Wilder treads upon that sacred territory between everyday life and the intrusion of death, in hopes that people will “realize life while they live it, every, every minute.” His premise is that we all know there is something eternal about every human being.
Only, most people don’t actually live their days as if eternity IS reality.
The soul is eternal and the body temporal––bound by time.
In terms of time, we carry our life message in a body.
Man Knows Not His Time
Days ago, my closest friend from high school called. She and I have been friends since our junior year. I had moved from California to Texas. She stood next to me in gym class, where we trained to pass physical fitness tests (LOL). A cute redheaded Texan, her drawl took some time for me to get used to, making for some hilarious misunderstandings of what she had said. And we still laugh about those moments in gym class where hysterical laughter cost us a few extra laps.
But last week, still in shock, she stuttered, “Michael died.”
Her husband Michael and my husband had been friends for 60 years.
With her call, the shock waves reached us.
Phone conversations followed, details, and what struck me is not only did he not know that day was “his time” to depart and be with Jesus, we didn’t know. How could we?
Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90
So many memories wrapped around these friends who through the years have shared so much of their lives with us and ours with them. SIGH.
A lament and a longing remains.
Snoopy Gets It Right
Charlie Brown to Snoopy: “We only live once.”
Snoopy: “We only die once. We live every day.”
From the pages of many books, I have acquired a hunger and thirst for story and also a desire to help others write about their life.
Consider stories that still move you––stories you repeat––because these capture the scenes that instruct you, or help you better understand life.
“The faintest ink is better than the strongest memory.”
Your experiences have shaped your life. Different people have provided channels of learning that led to how you view the world. Various influences have contributed to your beliefs. Together, these account for where you are today and continue to make you the person known by other people, even as your story seems somewhat confusing at times.
Contradictions, complications and limitations make cowards of us all.
Writing about our own life asks us to be brave.
A Letter to Her Family
A friend shared with me the letter her mother wrote to her family during COVID. In 12 pages, this woman shared enough for me appreciate her story and envision the impact her life had on those whose lives she had touched.
This mother gave each member of her family a copy of her story for Christmas that year, as well as a copy of the book that led her to write about her life.
My friend gave me permission to share this, so I’m including just page one of her story.
“Uncommon Character” is a book I discovered on my Kindle iPad. I was intrigued by the title and the format. The sub-title is “Stories of Ordinary Men and Women who have done the Extraordinary.” As I began to read, I was truly amazed. The stories were interesting, informative, and inspirational, with added commentary about the writer’s faith in Almighty God.
At one point, the writer challenged his readers to write their own stories because each of is unique, a special creation of God himself. So, I’m taking his challenge and will attempt to tell at least some of my story. As I write this, it is July, 2020, and I am almost 91 years old. Some of the experiences you may have heard before; others I have never shared, so as best I can remember, I’ll begin at the beginning.
I was born on August 19, 1929, to Karin and Jimmie (James L.) Randel in Wichita Falls, Texas, just before the Great Depression. They were both loving and godly parents and taught me early about a loving God. As a child going to church, I remember a pastor who preached very loudly. To me. He would yell, “God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is omni-present,” and I had no idea what those big words meant. As I later came to understand, there is nothing God cannot do, there is nothing he does not know, and there is everywhere God can be. I am thankful that church has always been a part of my life and faithful Sunday School teachers taught me truth and instilled in me a love for God’s word.
I have a memory of talking with my parents in the kitchen of our 2-bedroom house on Tilden Street, as they led me to faith in Jesus. I was 9 years old and it didn’t take much for me to understand I was a sinner in the eyes of a perfect Savior because I had a habit of lying to my parents! I got in a lot of piano practice done when they left me at home occasionally with instructions to get my practicing done while they were away for a little while. I could look them right in their eyes and say, “Yes, I practiced 30 minutes.” Do you think they knew?
Fast forward to my college years at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and to a particular Sunday School teacher who had an important impact on my life. I don’t remember the lesson topic or a particular scripture, but I do remember an impression I had one Sunday morning, and it was simply this.
If ever I could have an influence in the lives of teenagers like my teacher was having in my life, then I would someday like to teach God’s word. Later, I had to ask myself, was this something from God? I didn’t tell anyone, but it was a very real experience for me. The name of that teacher was Mrs. Fred English and I have never forgotten her.
Fast forward again. I married my college sweetheart, Glen Burroughs in 1950, and we began our lives in Abilene, in a small duplex – complete with mice! – but that’s another story. We continued to attend the same church we had in college. One day, a lady from the church came to visit me. Her purpose was to ask me to teach a class of girls who were seniors in High School. What?? How could I even think about doing that? They were 18 and I was 21. What could I teach them? But then I remembered how God had touched my life and I took a big step of faith. I have no idea what I taught them, but I know scripture teaches us in Isaiah 55:11, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” …. ([2] to read more)
In My Life
My mother also wrote about her life, leaving me with a typed 8-page summary of significant thoughts before her departure, including scenes from childhood she had never shared.
My point, you don’t have to write a book to record what your life has taught you about the world, yourself, and others.
Awareness, Acknowledgement, and Action
Pay attention to your life. Start small. Recall decades. Remember days.
Your life carries its message in your body.
What you and I do with this body, written or not, comes out of what we believe about God’s good purposes for giving us life.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100:3
Often, simply putting into your own words portions of your story will end up in the hands of someone who cares what you think and how you lived your one and only precious life.
[1] ] quote by J. McDonald, cited in Creating a Spiritual Legacy, 115.
[2] If you’d like to read the rest of Virginia Burrough’s story, email me at cmg@footnotes2stories.com or write me at the P.O. Box below.