If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.
But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.
-Donald Miller
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Perhaps it’s morbid, but lately I’ve been asking myself – – If you died tomorrow, what would you have to show for your life? I feel as Donald Miller did in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – ‘…so when I’m done with my story, God will probably sit there looking at me, wondering what to talk about next.’
…I never really learned French. Oh, I took 6 years of it in High School and College, but all I was really doing was skating by. I never chose an art to master. I enjoy scrapbooking occasionally, and I’d love to know how to knit something other than a scarf. Man, I would kill to have a natural drawing ability or finally be able to play more than Greensleeves on the piano. And I’d give my left arm to be able to compose a beautiful and meaningful photograph.
It’s always been… well, when I get out of High School I can focus on one concentration. I’ll have plenty of time to learn whatever I want then. After that it was… when I’m out of college and away from term papers, I’ll have plenty of time to myself, all the time in the world. Now, well, now I’m too tired after working an 80 hour week to do anything productive. It’s always…. maybe on the weekend or maybe when I finish shooting this tv show.
I completed my last show in mid-December. It’s February and what do I have to show for myself? Are there French verb conjugations on my desk, knitted sweaters in my closet, or photographs needing editing on my computer? What am I doing with my life?
And yet still… If I mastered all of these things, if I became a prolific scrapbooker or famous pianist, would my life truly have any more meaning?
And so I propose that a week spent cleaning earthquake debris in Haiti or a summer volunteering at the local homeless shelter, while certainly a great start, are not sufficient to wake me from this perfectly “acceptable” and perfectly boring life I’ve created for myself. It is not enough to want to “help.” I’ve wanted to help for years. Wanting just isn’t enough anymore. It’s time to be changed. It’s time to give of myself with reckless abandon.
So I embark on The World Race knowing that my life is not as worthy as those I’m going to help. Praying that a year from now I will no longer be a girl in search of a meaningful life, but a woman content with her value and her role in the life God has given her.
