A blogger since 2009, I continue to write about story, emphasizing the one STORY that governs all stories.

Yours, mine, and ours.

You and I need story the way a car needs fuel. To keep going till we are gone. Where do you and I fit into this vast panorama of human history?

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“You don’t have a soul.

You are a soul.”

It follows then:

You don’t have a story.

You are a story.

You and I are a story within the pages of God’s story, as unique as our fingerprints and DNA.

Each of our stories serve God’s good purposes, for as human beings, we are alive and actively involved in His story at this moment in time.

Making Sense of Your Story

In his book Secrets in the Dark, Frederick Buechner repeats these words like a refrain. “Pay attention to your life.”

Making sense of your story begins by paying attention. If you don’t pay attention to your life, why should anyone else?

You can live a better story if you pay attention to your life. Your story has meaning. Or else it doesn’t. The Bible seeks to direct you to the meaning of life, as you live it.

We each experience life in the one and only body God gave us. It’s only natural to think I’m the main character in my story because I see myself in every scene.

Story provides a framework for context, setting, theme, while conflict gives each character obstacles to overcome, dreams to fulfill, and people to relate to.

Stories help us as human beings make sense of our lives.

If life is the best teacher, story is a vehicle for learning. Story provides a way to learn from all sorts of people’s lives. “Some are dead and some are living, In my life I’ve loved them all.”

Yes, I love stories––whether true or fiction created to carry truth––where people disguised as characters contribute to my understanding of life and help me see myself more clearly.

From Shakespeare to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie, to Joseph and King David and a host of biblical persons, their written and preserved stories enlarge my capacity to grow as a human being.

The Big Picture

Each and every person is part of a much bigger story, a story already in progress that began before you and I learned how to think or read or conceive of meaning and a purpose in life.

Characters in stories help us relate to other people’s challenges and help us learn lessons they learned or failed to learn.

Without even thinking about it, you and I are wired to respond to stories.

Stories take readers and thinkers beyond the limitations of time and GPS location so that other people’s life experiences––their stories––serve as one of the easiest ways to learn how to live your best life.

Stories help us remember.

Footnotes remind me there’s always more to the story.