I used to perform this exercise with my students from the management course I taught – write out the life of a president from birth to ascendancy to power.  Invariably, most classes would chart out a straight line path – good family, prep school, Ivy League education, elite jobs, perfect spouses and kids, etc.  I would then ask them whether this jived with reality.  And of course, it doesn’t.  Most of our lives are twisty-turny and especially those of great people.

I think this one is about stories and who writes ours.

Everyone has a story and it’s not anyone place to fully judge which is better or worse.  But it would be also be untrue to say that some are more interesting than others.

This is also about allowing God to write the story.  His and ours.  It can be scary because it’s giving the pen away and He can be an unpredictable story writer.

But at the end of it all, it still comes down to trust and surrender.

Do we believe that He is a good writer?

Stories don’t have to be complex to have impact and power.  But the truly great ones – on the par of Hugo, Dostoevsky, Marquez, Tolstoy, etc.  often are.  Maybe that’s the hallmark of an epic.

I also often think of the quote from the Gladiator movie – What we do in life echoes in eternity.  Don’t ever delude yourself, this is truth.  And this may not just involve our deeds in this realm but maybe our stories stretch beyond our earthly experience.   But this is just conjecture and cold comfort to the present.

But life is a journey. Not a destination.  In the words of poet Steven Tyler.  Thinking of it as otherwise – a game, ladder, battle, etc.  will drive you crazy and you’ll always feel like you can’t win.

Who’s to say where the wind will take you?

Who’s to say what it is will break you?