What about today are you going to remember for the rest of your life? What happened today that you’re going to tell your grandchildren about some day? Or better, when was the last time you lived a story that you couldn’t wait to tell?
I just finished reading a book by Donald Miller. One of the perks of having an all squad month is your library becomes huge. The book wasn’t bad. It was an easy read and took me all of three days to finish. While I was reading, I didn’t think it was a life altering book. It made good points, but at the end of the day, I just needed something to occupy my free time. But of course, a week later, I can’t stop thinking about the book.
So basically, he tells the process of one of his other books, Blue Like Jazz, becoming a movie. As the screenwriters teach him about writing a better story that movie audiences will want to watch, he starts applying the same concepts to his life. He goes from trying to write a better story to trying to live a better story.
This weekend is our halfway point of The Race. I’ve started to believe that The Race will in fact end, and in a few months I’ll find myself in America no matter how surreal that thought seems now. Taking the advice from one of our squad leaders, I’ve stopped wishing to be home because in 5 and half months that wish will come true regardless. And now that half of this great adventure is over, I’m thinking about how I want to live the second half of it. As my life continues, I will probably talk about these 11 months of my life more than any other year I’ve lived. I’ll talk about what happened when I was 22 more than any other single year. And if I’m going to tell my husband, kids, and grandchildren about this, if I’m going to tell people who I don’t even currently know about this adventure, I better be living it.
This is what I’m saying. It’s easy to think every moment of this year is an adventure just because it’s happening in another country. But that’s not true. I have to choose adventure, I have to choose how I’m going to remember this day every single day. And just like real life, there are a lot of days on The Race I don’t remember. Because living a story requires effort.
The other day my teammate and I woke up to see the sunrise. We’re in the middle of an African savannah with mountains off in the distance, and everything is gorgeous. Oh and it’s freezing here. As I pulled myself off my top bunk I questioned my sanity. We would be here for a whole month, I’ll see it another morning. Right now I just want to sleep in my warm bed. But I got up; we spent an hour snuggled in sleeping bags watching God show off his creation talking about memories from The Race and home. Then we went on a quick run before eating breakfast. It’s a great story now. I can tell my kids one day how beautiful an Ethiopian sunrise is. In fact, it was my favorite morning of the month. But that story didn’t just happen. It required work and getting my lazy self out of bed.
And that’s the thing about living stories, they require work. I remember my off days vividly when we played with tigers, rode elephants, explored Angkor Watt, surfed, climbed waterfalls, rafted The Nile, and saw a lantern festival. I’ve had just as many off days where I parked myself at a cafe and used wifi the entire day. And those moments aren’t bad, they’re just forgettable. I remember the days when someone’s back was healed, when a women accepted Christ, when a man who invited demons into his house decided to turn to Christ, when women at bars said they saw Jesus in us, when I got to baptize someone in Lake Victoria, when we prayed for the gifts of the Holt Spirit and people were filled. I remember those days even though those are only a dozen days from the past five months.
So how do I want to live my story these next five months? Because the kicker is, I have a choice. Usually, stories don’t just happen. You have to do something. You have to be somewhere. You have to get out of bed.
I want to see more sunrises. I want to spend less time in bed and more time finding adventure. I want to live in the moment not on wifi. My squad mentor gave me great advice back at the beginning of December. He told me to make every day memorable. When I’m living an average day that I won’t remember, grab some people and make memories. Go play with the kids outside, pray for the bus driver, stay up until midnight talking about Revelations, take a motorcycle over walking just for the thrill of it, try to catch that goat, chicken, or cow, talk to a stranger, or go travel the world.
So how are you going to live your story? What’s your story even about? The cool thing about God is that he wants us to create in his creation. So write your plot. You only have 80 years to live, if that, and what’s going to be the plot of your life? Because all of our lives are stories. As Donald Miller points out, no one cries at the end of a movie when a guy works for years and finally gets a new car. No one cries in a movie when someone’s bank account finally reaches a certain number. So what do you want your story to be? Go to concerts. Make friends with your neighbor you never talk to you. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day. Tell someone about Jesus. Do something you’re scared of. Live a story today that you will tell grandchildren about. And then, make another memory tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
