Do you know the beauty in your story? Sometimes, especially if you’re a novelist, you don’t write or share anecdotes about your personal history, family history, and inspiring story. We’re creating unknown worlds and characters, so why leave the world of daydreams and fantasies to dive into our autobiography?
I recommend we do. Helps us to understand ourselves and our worldview. Although as novelist, our characters don’t directly reflect us, by understanding our own journey, we can colorfully give voice to their stories.
I want to work our fingers and dive into finding the beauty in our personal story. We might be surprised by what we unearth.
I’ll dive first:
What is my story?
Redeeming the time. That’s the beauty.
I’m not sharing about my childhood, but my life in my late twenties into the late thirties. I was an ORU graduate, taking English-related courses, and working in an outreach ministry. I wanted to write stories, but my commitment to the ministry was 24/7. I was the outreach pastor’s assistant and we both lived in the ministry house, called the House of Hope. Our outreach ministry focused on men in two local prisons. Our team drove them to church on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. On Sunday afternoon, the inmates came to the House of Hope for a hot meal and on Tuesdays, we held a service there as well. On Wednesday nights, our team took the men to the church for that evening service.
When the pastor got diagnosed with cancer, my life was on overdrive. I drove her to and from chemotherapy sessions, various doctor appointments, and took more responsibility for the ministry.
While I was working on a Young Adult novel, my writing time became an hour here and there once a month. Eventually, I stopped working on it altogether.
I barely dated since my life didn’t have margin for dating. Really, I didn’t have much margin for anything except the ministry and care taking. Once she was in remission from the cancer, she got diagnosed with lymphedema where legs swelled two to three times their normal size. She got it under control with naturalistic therapy but on the way to the naturopathic doctor, a Nissan Armada made a turn in front of us and side swiped our car. We were driving straight and had the right of way. Our car careened off the road and into a ditch. Despite heading south, the car now faced north.
Unfortunately, the trauma from the accident sent her lymphedema into catastrophic levels. Her legs swelled up even more, where she could no longer wear compression hose. Basically, she became homebound since even riding in a car caused great discomfort, stress, and swelling.
She lived the next years as best as she could but was stricken with chronic pain, restricted immobility, and increased health issues.
As her caretaker, I prepared all her meals. Others helped with her care as well, but it was still a lot to juggle between the ministry and her care.
I felt stuck as if I’d never have a life beyond helping her. Never write. Never marry. Never have my own place. And I felt guilty for having these fears knowing she was suffering as she was.
But through this time, I discovered that when I’m facing a dead end, God comes through. That was the beautiful thread running through the narrative of my life.
A few years later, we ended the prison ministry. Multiple factors converged making this a necessity. Now the pastor could focus solely on her recovery. Then light shined into my life during this time. I got an opportunity to help the pastor’s granddaughter in southern Florida for a summer. A married couple moved in to care for the pastor.
This Florida opportunity was heavenly. At least once a week, I’d escape to the ocean since it was only ten minutes away from where I stayed.
Three months later, I returned to Tulsa refreshed, rejuvenated, and refocused. I eventually moved into an apartment within six months.
Once on my own, I rebuilt my life. It took longer than I expected, frustrating me. But while at a meeting, a friend prophesied that God would redeem my time.
And he did. Eventually I joined a writing group, ghost wrote a few memoirs for clients, worked on editing projects, and now working on two novels. And am married. These were dreams I felt had died, but God helped resurrect them.
Now that you know my story, let’s focus on you.
Exercise:
- Get out a pen and paper (or software program).
- Brainstorm (even mind map) your story of death. What have you experienced that was a ‘death’?
- Write words, phrases, or even sentences about this death. How bad was it?
- Brainstorm (mind map if you prefer) your resurrection story. How did your death get redeemed?
- Share on a blog or vlog, social media post, or with another person. And share in Comments below as well.
CONTEST: If you submit a video or link to your blog, or your social media post in Comments where you shared your story in the exercise format, then you’ll be entered in a random drawing for a $20 Amazon gift card.
Featured Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash