Part of me wakes up every day thinking that something amazing is going to happen in the next 12 hours. Some extraordinary phone call, some flash of genius thought or even some random act of kindness.
The other part of me brushes her teeth, combs her hair and wonders what the weather is going to be like.
I wish my better half took control more often.
Today during my break at work I ignored my ham sandwich in pursuit of something better than cheese, egg and ham on an artisan roll. I neglected these things to read Donald Miller’s newest book (or, at least newest to me) entitled “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Miller (and I’m guessing its a lot since I got a lot of blank stares at the mention of his name at work today), he is a writer and co-founder of something called The Mentoring Project.
He’s also one of my favorite people in the world…who I haven’t met of course (so stop getting jealous, friend).
Many of his books are memoirs and follow a stream of consciousness approach. Which I happen to love considering my mind moves at an un-Godly speed from one topic to the next. In fact, my friends have learned to speak “my” language which involves remember topics we talked about minutes to days earlier…since I go back and forth.
Anyway, obviously I just made that clear.
This particular book is about Donald Miller getting approached by some Hollywood “types” (love the lingo, right?) about making his life into a movie. Mr. Miller is excited by the idea…til he stops to really think about it. What’s so special about his life? About his story? Does he even have a story? He starts out by questioning whether he’ll have anything to tell God at the end of his life.
Not that God needs a reminder.
I’m not going to feed you line after line of the book. Obviously if you’ve made it to this sentence, you’ve got a pretty good grasp on literacy. I will say that it goes on to really describe what a “story” is…and that despite our thoughts to the contrary, we all have one. Our lives are one big story. So, what you say?
Here’s the what.
If our life is a story, shouldn’t we want it to be a good one? I know I’d rather my life be a thriller than an encyclopedia. When you start to imagine your life being more like pen to paper, rather than sand passing through an hour glass, it becomes more real. More important. More eternal.
I’ll admit, so far my story hasn’t been an exciting one. But Donald Miller has given me inspiration for a new plot. There are lots of unwritten words, scenes and characters to discover. And, as Mr. Miller points out in the end, “It’s as though God is saying ‘Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help’”.
End Scene.
Wonderful post.
I love reading you when you write like this. I have difficulty commenting because I don’t know what to write about first.
I worry about having enough interesting things to write about too; sometimes my life is insufferably boring.