What makes a story worth telling? Is it about the happy ending or the character development? About exciting adventures, love at first sight, or heroic sacrifice? Maybe.
Stories have a way of capturing the imagination and bringing a whole new reality to life. It can teleport you to your deepest self or to an imagined paradise. But at the end of the day, what is a story? No matter how well told, every good story comes to an ending. That's part of what gives it such value. It is as fleeting a moment as the breath which breathed it out, and gone just as quickly. What remains is not the title, characters, or genre, but the impact it made in hearts and minds. For if a story does not leave its audience with some lasting meaning then what is its purpose? To entertain, perhaps, but only for as long as it lasts. Instead, it is the truly great stories that leave you not with an answer or a chuckle but a question. A question to make you stop and think about your part in this world we share and what sort of impact you make in it. Does it inspire you to be as heroic; challenge you to see from a new perspective; teach you what love really looks like; or simply leave you with a smile you want to share with others. How does it challenge you to - in your own way - live your life more worth living and make the world a better place. That is the measure of a true story worth telling.
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Those who have known me for a long time probably know me as I writer, while those who have entered my life in the past 5 years or so may not know that part of me much at all. The truth is, I always loved reading and (though I hated English) I also always loved creating stories. I was the nerdy kid who usually just wanted to sit and read Nancy Drew in the corner during recess, and my love for literature has largely shaped who I am and the ambitions I've pursued. Long story short, I got the bug to write in High School. I self-published my first trilogy by the time I turned 18 and have tried my hand at a wide variety of writing styles since then. It was something I saw as a defining characteristic of myself - something that would always be a part of me and that I'd never let go of no matter what else I ended up doing. Flash forward 5 years and I've barely been able to get a single writing project off the ground. I still love to write, and having this semblance of a blog has been here to keep from losing my touch completely, but for the most part I've done exactly what I swore I'd never do: I let it go. So what happened to my envisioned life of being the next J.K. Rowling, bringing people's hearts and minds alive across the world? Well, a series of events contributed to it, but in essence: it wasn't easy. I poured my heart and soul into it only to find that things didn't line up immediately - or at all. I got discouraged and thought the problem was with me. I thought that if I was really meant to be doing this, that ideas would flow quickly and easily all the time and that people would love it instantly. That was youthful naivete at its finest, and who could blame me? After growing up in the "Anyone can be anything, all you have to do is want it bad enough" generation, it only made sense that if I produced something spectacular my fairy godmother would show up at my door and whisk me away to be a superstar. But that never happened and instead I found myself swept up into the wonderful and busy world of missionary life, in which it became very easy to put off my lack of writing as just being too busy or too tired. Lots of excuses like "Oh I'll do that on the weekend," "I only get one day off, maybe I should spend it doing something more restful," and "I'll pick it back up down the road when I go home" came far too easily. In hindsight now I start to question if those were really what caused me to give it up or if they were simply allowing me to hide from something I didn't want to admit to myself: that I was scared of writing. I had become scared of being rejected and scared of writing something bad because it would only prove to everyone who had believed in me earlier that I was nothing more than a one-hit-wonder. If I didn't write any more books, then I wouldn't have to break it to myself or others that maybe I just wasn't creative enough anymore. All of these un-formulated, un-expressed fears drove me into a cage in my own mind that I still struggle to break free from. Even now that I recognize the ridiculousness of what has held me back for so long, I still feel like I'm swimming with lead boots on every time I even think of sitting down to my computer to create something. It's been a stronghold I struggle against every time I try to step into what God has called me to do. I know this sounds like a sad story, but maybe it doesn't need to have such a defeating ending as I'd thought. You see, I've submitted my life to Christ. And not just in a "oh how nice, she got baptized and put a promise ring on" kind of way. I've laid everything I am down and given up far more than I ever imagined I'd have to, and found every single step on this crazy, wild journey to be 100% worth it because I know I'm not doing it alone or in vain Everything I am and everything I do, I do as one who knows that I am deeply and genuinely loved enough to die for. That kind of love will take you places you never expected to go, and it'll turn your darkest day into a beacon of hope for the rest of your life because you know just how far grace will go to bring you back home. And if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that He will never let me go and He will never give up on me. So with that - I'm trying again. I've let this part of who I am lie dormant for long enough. I felt like it had died for good, but the truth is nothing can really die that's a piece of who you are. You can shove it in a box and leave it in a corner for years and years, but that will only leave a hole in your life where it should be. You can't lose who you were designed to be no matter how royally you screw it up, and it's taken God many persistent years to get me to the place where I can believe that. I still don't know if I'm any good, but I do know that it's something God wants to use to bless me and others in one way or another. Now all I need are some friends to help keep me accountable, because I know the process of my literary rehabilitation isn't going to happen overnight. It's going to be pretty rough and terribly bumpy as I force myself to step out against what appears to have insidiously become one of my deepest fears, but I know there is more than enough grace to make up for my mistakes, and I don't always have to be the one to get it right on the first try. (or second or third, but I'll get there...) |
ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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