A day spent grading assignments at home left me with an evening wanting to do something adventurous. So I found myself walking around Borders bookstore with my iPod in my ear browsing the Religious section and at the same time doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about my life - past, present, and future - reminded me of the movie Stranger Than Fiction. Its been over a year since I watched it so I might be a little off on the details but travel with my thoughts for a minute.
The movie stars Will Ferrell and Dustin Hoffman among others. Ferrell's character finds out that his life is actually a book being written by some author battling writer's block. He starts hearing a voice (the author's) narrating his daily activities and thinks he's losing his mind. The author has no clue she's actually writing the true story of a man but everything she rights about him comes to pass. His once boring life became a world of interest when he falls in love with a woman. You can imagine his hurt when he finds out the author is going to kill his character (him) before the book ends. He somehow finds out where the author works and shows up at her office trying to change her mind.
Now let's imagine our lives as books or stories in a book. If you could get the author to change anything what would you change? What (or who) would you remove from or add into your life? Ever feel like whoever was doing the writing was going through writer's block? I was thinking about this when I saw a book at Borders. A line on the cover of the book said something that got my attention. It said "...letting God write your romance...". Now there's many ways I would like the romance in my life to read. I remember the night I watched the movie; I was experiencing the end of a relationship I really didn't want to end. Gosh, I wished I could have run into an office building and begged my author to rewrite my story so that this person wouldn't leave. I had said and done all the right things that I knew how to. How could she leave after I gave hear my heart. She had me doing stuff for her I had never done for anybody else (and probably will never do for anybody now). But I still couldn't make her stay. I tried to write out my story but couldn't get it to end the way I wanted.
Truth is we all want to write our story. We want to be at the author's typewriter and punch at the keys that tell our story. Our success story. Our career story. Our family story. Our romance story. It's really hard to be still and live out the life someone else is writing. But the most beautiful romance is the one written by the Author of life Himself. His plan for your life story is so much more beautiful than any "boy meets girl" story you can imagine. Better than any "rags to riches" tale you can come up with in your head. You may not see it now but just wait till He's done with it. Oh how He wants to inspire many with your life story. He knows exactly how. After all, He's been doing it for a while. Since the beginning of time to be exact. He knows why he/she walked out of your life. He knows why you are where you are right now; doing what you're doing. It's all part of the wonderful beautiful story He's writing. And only He knows how it ends.
Every time I try to "make things happen", it doesn't. Or it does for a minute but then ends in a disaster. So I'm done fighting Him. I'm done trying to re-write or finish my story. I'm done trying to figure out why, or when, or how. My romance. My career. My legacy. My life. I want it all to rest like playdoh in His Hands. Like a still blank page. And let Him write away.
"God, You started this story. And I'm going to let You finish it. "In case you are wondering, Will Ferrell's character in the movie doesn't die at the end of the book after all. The author wrote him getting into a really bad accident but he recovered and lived happily ever after (whatever that means) with the love of his life.
(part 2 coming later this week)
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