Story within a Story

I have some wonderful friends and family members who agreed to read my manuscript, before I complete my final edit. I have been working on this project for so long that it is hard to remain objective about it. I received feedback recently from one reader, and she was very perceptive. She told me that she liked how I had written a story within a story. Hmmm. That is true. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but as I think back over my books, they all are really a story within a story. It seems to be a literary device I use subconsciously.

And then I got to thinking, all of us are living stories within a story. The Main Story is about God, and how He created humans in His image, with the power to follow or reject Him. He knew they would be imperfect in their ability to follow Him, and so from the beginning, He devised a way in which the conflicting necessities of justice and mercy would be enacted. From the beginning, He knew He would send a savior to those hopeless people, who would provide the only possible means back to their Creator.

The stories within the Story are the lives of each of us as we make the decision to follow God or to reject Him. Our tales are fraught with struggle, turmoil, victory, defeat, pain, delight, despair, sin, and overcoming. Some of our stories will end in tragedy. Some will end in triumph. 

And the Savior Himself told stories to draw those hopeless humans to Himself. The funny thing is, all His stories were stories within stories too! There was the literal meaning of the story, and then there was the spiritual meaning -- the message that He hoped would capture the heart of His listeners. All His stories work that way. I guess I am learning to write at the hands of a Master.

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He continued, “Do you see how this story works? All my stories work this way. “The farmer plants the Word. Some people are like the seed that falls on the hardened soil of the road. No sooner do they hear the Word than Satan snatches away what has been planted in them. “And some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When they first hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm. But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. “The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it. “But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.” (Mark 4:13-20 MSG)

Kindness and Paying it Forward

     The list is completely prepared with neat little boxes to check off. In one week, we get to ski! I have had an overwhelming response to my organizing the homeschool ski groups to Sugar Mountain, thus the rates are good and we can afford this otherwise impossibly pricey love of ours. 
     One friend wrote me, very concerned that I was taking on an enormous task and had no idea how inundated I would be. She offered to help me develop an online form so that people could register without me having to email back and forth to get all the info I needed. It took me all day, even with her expert help, but in the end, the form was complete. At one point, after several back and forths, the friend was ready to give up on me. I could tell. She wrote, "Maybe it would be easier for you to just send out emails." However, she stuck with me, and I did finally produce a very fine form that will help me in streamlining the process.
     Another stranger wrote, a fellow homeschooler.
"This is an enormous task you are taking on, " she warned, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
     Yet another stranger wrote and said that since she didn't ski, but would be bringing her kids, she would volunteer to hand out the ski tickets so that once I had the registration set, I could go ski myself.
Every homeschooler who emailed me asking to join the ski group list, thanked me profusely, saying that for the typical one income earning homeschool family, skiing was a sport none of them could otherwise afford. I agree. The only way we ever got involved with it was because of the kindness of some homeschool families in Asheville who organized huge groups of homeschoolers and secured group rates at the mountains. When I am done homeschooling, my skiing days will probably end...unless I become a world famous top selling writer. My suspicion is I will have to find a less expensive sport to indulge in...like knitting.
     Our ability to do this wonderful thing was due to the kindness of strangers. More and more in life, I see strangers reaching out to others. I just read in 2 Samuel where King David regains his throne and wants to offer kindness to anyone left of Saul's family when King Saul and son Jonathan are killed in battle. This is a remarkable gesture on many levels, not the least of which being I have correctly spelled the name of the person that David ends up showing kindness to (Mephibosheth!).
     Saul had been relentlessly pursuing David to kill him, out of the rage of jealousy. David evaded Saul and refused to lift a hand against the "Lord's anointed one." Mephiposheth, Jonathan's son, was crippled when his nurse dropped him, fleeing David's army. She assumed that since Saul wanted to kill David, David would want to kill any offspring of Saul or his sons.
     David instead, ends up extending kindness to Mephibosheth, the lame son of Jonathan, bringing Mephiposheth to the palace to eat at the King's table for the rest of his life. It is a beautiful picture of the grace extended to us in all our crippling sinfulness from the King of Kings. In running from God, we become crippled. Fear sometimes prevents us from returning to the author of our hope. Yet the King is willing and anxious to seek us out, to show His love and mercy, to welcome us back to His table of bounty.
    Now I am a little concerned that in my musing about skiing, and kindness, I am also imagining lame, crippled people. This is the downside of skiing. It is downright dangerous.

Genesis 21: 22-23
“God is with you in everything you do. ²³ Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you now reside as a foreigner the same kindness I have shown to you.”

A Story That Will Make You Smile

"Want to hear a story that will make you cry?" Matt said over the phone.
I sat on the condo balcony, overlooking the shimmering lake with its sunset flakes of gold bobbing on the waves.
"If it has a happy ending," I said.

Matt was getting married in just four days. I sure didn't want to hear stories from him that were too sad.
Matt had cleaned out his Richmond apartment and was on his way back to Lynchburg. He would stay with us in the condo on the lake til his wedding. He only has a small car and we decided the best thing to do was sell the bed I'd bought him for his Richmond apartment.

"So I listed it on Craig's list," he told me," And a lady called me asking if I could sell it to her this weekend. She needed a bed for her two year old.
I told her no, sorry, I was getting married this weekend so it had to go today. She told me that wouldn't work out for her as her husband didn't get paid til this weekend. So I told her that I could reduce the price if that would help. But she said no, thanks, but it really wouldn't work for them. They lived paycheck to paycheck as her husband was a cook, so she would just pass on the bed.

By now, I am feeling really sorry for her, so I told her, please, just come take the bed for free. But when her husband got paid, maybe they could give a little money to a church of their choice. She told me they were very involved with their church and volunteer there a lot, so she would be overjoyed to do that.

So her husband comes to get the bed, big burly guy and super nice. And in the car is a cute curly haired little girl. The husband tells me that he works at Bojangles as a cook, and volunteers also cooking for church events."
Matt paused in his story, and I could hear his smile across the miles.

By now, of course, I am crying as I hear the story, thinking of the mercy and grace of God to have blessed me with a child of such kindness and compassion. And to have linked him to the family without a bed for their daughter. A family that themselves love God and were trusting Him for their provision.

"So," Matt continued,"I called Karissa and told her the story, and she started crying. And she said, 'Why don't we tithe our wedding gift money and give it to that family?'"

"So," Matt said,"I called the guy and told him that was what we'd like to do if that would be ok with them."

I worry, like every mother of all the cruelty and sorrow and broken dreams my dear son will have to overcome in this world. He seems so young, my baby who is about to be married. But that story reminded me that he was harboring a soul and gaining a wife who understood what the most important thing in all existance is....And he was trusting in the One who gave him the heart to want to give a two year old a soft place to lay her head that night.

3 John 1:4-6 NIV

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God.

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No More Than We Can Bear

In the midst of starting back to our school routine, Asherel still sick but slowly on the mend, and the wedding trip out West looming in less than a week, I noticed a fire in the back of the computer.

I noticed the fire when the mouse on the computer stopped working and the computer crossed its ethernet arms and refused to talk to me.
This in and of itself would not be enough to put me over the edge, except that as I peered a little worriedly at the fire, I was teetering in my new high heels and my toes were a little sore. I know that women conquer the fine art of walking in heels every day and I was determined not to be bested by a pair of shoes. So I had gone online to research "how to walk without falling over or requiring any emergency podiatric intervention when wearing heels over one inch high". There is a surprisingly large number of educational videos on this subject, unlike the dearth of educational videos on "What to do if computer mouse stops working and back of computer appears to be on fire." One of the excellent pieces of advice (on shoes, not fire) was to practice walking in the high heels before the event so that one would develop the leg muscles necessary to walk in high heels. Who knew it was an athletic event? That site, which had step by step photos also suggested the athlete wear the heels for a week indoors first, and then graduate to a walk down the driveway to get the mail. If sufficiently able to navigate that task without mishap, the next step would be a trip to the grocery store.

"You are going to the grocery store in those?" asked Asherel, her face registering a mix of horror and bemusement.
"I have to. It is part of the training program."

Meantime, I shut down the computer and after hyperventilating, calmly called my husband, as well as the Geek Squad at Best Buy. The Geek who answered the phone listened politely as I said, "Do you all deal with computers that are on fire?"
"Is it under warranty?" he asked.
"I don't know. How about if I read you the serial number before they melt in the flames?"
Now in actuality, once I shut down the computer, the orange glow in the back did stop, lending some comfort, if not to my tottering toes, at least to my peace of mind that we would not burn down the house.
The Geek felt that while he could not diagnose over the phone, a computer on fire probably was not a good
sign, and recommended I bring it in. Shortly thereafter, one of my favorite computer experts and kind friend told me the orange glow was normal and shows that the internet was properly connected and sending signals.
And then in the nick of time, Matt came home and quickly fixed the computer. Not once did he notice or mention the fact that I was wearing sweat pants and high heels.

Our life seems to surge from one little crisis to another, and it would be so easy to just sit down and cry. Some struggles are certainly more life altering than learning to balance on high heels, or crashing computers, or even lingering illnesses on the eve of nonrefundable flights out west. So it was with great interest I read my verse today, "God is faithful and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing, He will also provide you the way out so that you may be able to endure it." 1 Corinthians 10:13. A dear friend going through a very difficult struggle once told me that verse is so often misused to construe that God will let us escape from struggles, or bear things that truly are unbearable, like the death of a child. Yet while God sometimes does not remove the struggle, He gives us the only eternal source of comfort and peace, Himself, through the struggles. In fact, the root of the word "way" used in this verse, in the original Greek, "ekbasis", connotes a way of escape- to go out, by foot- but with the added meaning of "completion". Jesus is of course described many times in the Bible as "the way", though the Greek root of that is slightly different, "hodos", and means literally a road or path. The struggle leads to competion. It is not my favorite method of arriving anywhere, through pain and blisters, but sometimes it is the only way, leaning on the arm of Jesus in our metaphorical tottering high heels.

He's Got Me Covered.....

Sometimes my dreams are so real, that when I wake up, I think I am just falling asleep. It is a little spooky if I dwell on that too much, so for now, let us start with the premise that I am actually awake right now. In my dream, I went to the mall in my bathing suit, like most Christmas shoppers, but I was wearing my expensive designer cover up. It had cost me a good bit, but it was beautiful thus well worth the money. I went to the saleslady at the store and she told me I had selected an exquisite cover-up, and was I done shopping? I told her I was, handed her my cover-up which I then paid an exorbitant sum for AGAIN. When I got home, I took the cover-up out of the shopping bag, and then smacked my forehead. I realized with dismay that I had already owned the stupid cover-up. How had I been duped into buying it again?

Well the Christian message is so painfully obvious that it is almost insulting to say it, particularly as it will tick off my secular readers.... all two of them. However, when I am handed a message by the Almighty, I know better than to keep it to myself. My guess is that 99% of the unexplained instances of people bursting into flame is from just such folly.

So, two main thoughts came to mind as I contemplated my dream. First the most critical message of Christianity- Jesus' sacrificial death on my behalf "covered" my sin. All God sees now when He looks at me is the atoning cover, and I am free from the punishment I deserve. I certainly didn't need to buy that cover-up again.... nor could I really buy it the first time. It was a gift freely given, though at a great price, and it only had to be accepted once. I don't know why I was so confused in my dream.

But the second meaning of "cover" in my dream that came to me is one I have long struggled with. The story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, kept me from faith for many years. I just did not understand how a loving God could put the strong parental instincts to love and protect his child in a father, and then ask him to overide that instinct and do the most reprehensible thing I can think of. I know what the Christian experts say- that it is a story of obedience, that Abraham knew ultimately Isaac would be returned to him, that he had to understand that the only thing that mattered was God and listening to him, yadayadayada. But none of those things helped me as a non-believer. It is still a passage that brings me extreme discomfort. However, the one part that I love is just as Abraham raises the knife to sacrifice his son, an angel of the Lord stops him, and tells him to sacrifice the ram , conveniently caught in a nearby thicket, instead. (Honestly, as an animal lover I don't like that aspect of it either, but it is better than Isaac's throat getting slit by dear old Dad.)
I love how God "covered" Abraham and gave him an out. He did not require Abraham to follow through with the sacrifice of his only son... though God had not given Himself the same out. God did know intimately what it meant to sacrifice an only son for a greater purpose.

In my dream, I ridiculously repurchased something I already owned. God already has me in His sights, and I am already covered. No need to revisit that store. And beyond that, whatever I am asked to do, He covers me with mercy and grace, and supplies whatever I need to accomplish the task. I have seen it played out in my life countless times, yet for some reason, I am often in doubt, and going back to buy what I already own.
(tomorrow we will discuss the imprudence of wearing a bathing suit to the mall in the dead of winter.)