It is early on a summer morning, the sun filters through the trees in the backyard. The pattern it draws on the dining room window shifts as its rising gains momentum in the hazy sky.

I’m on the couch with my laptop, and my teenage children and middle aged husband are slumbering, as they should at 6:30 a.m. in summer. During the winter, the kids have to be out the door by seven. They are old enough to make their own lunches and pack their backpacks, but it's a time of both controlled chaos and connection for us. During the school year, I cannot sit like this, with the windows open and the birds singing and the pattern of sunlight changing like a kaleidoscope on the window screen.

The story of our life shifts with the seasons. Summer’s pattern is different from winter’s. My forties are different from my thirties—I’ve changed. And I’m not just talking wrinkles. My skin has changed, yes, but I’m more comfortable in it. We are continually changing. The question that matters is, does the change have a direction, a point? Are we growing into what God would have us to be? Do we think about what our lives are about, and what kind of story we want to tell with them?

Many of us long to hear from God. I think one of the ways we can listen to him is to pay attention to the story of our lives. And perhaps, to take steps to align the story we’re living with the one he wants to tell in and through us.

In this same room last night, I gathered with a group of writers. We discussed the chapters that Helen and Caryn had emailed us. We ate chocolate and crudités, drank wine. We shared exciting developments in our publishing journeys.  We talked about the stories we are writing, both in books and in our lives. We talked about mission and calling, about writing and parenting. We encouraged each other to be brave, to keep writing. In a way, we wove the stories of our lives together, just a bit.

I’m so thankful that I get to write, and that I have found a way, after ten years of freelancing, to surround myself with people who encourage me on that path. It required courage. I have worked hard at improving my craft. This writers group invited me to join them only after I told them that I wanted to do so. Sometimes, in the story of your life, you get what you want. Usually, you don’t get it if you don’t ask for it.

I’m up early in part because I need to get this newsletter written, and later this morning I have to go to my other part-time job that is not writing. That’s how I think of it—the job that is not writing. Yesterday, I cleaned the house, rearranged the furniture in the living room, went to the market to buy the vegetables for the crudités, and spent an hour making bouquets from flowers in my garden to put around the room. I didn’t get much writing done. But I welcomed people into my home, which brings me joy. And the flowers still look great.

All of the things I’ve told you in the last few paragraphs are part of the story God has placed me in, for this season of my life. A gardening mom of teenagers whose house gets cleaned when company’s coming, who writes books but also has a part-time job not writing. That’s the surface.

What lies deeper within? What story am I telling with my life? How is God changing me? Can I hear his voice through the story of my life?  

What is the story of your life about? This is a question that never fully gets answered, because it keeps changing. Right now, a lot of my life is focused on my children. I am deeply aware, however, that they are becoming increasingly independent. Eventually, they will go off to college and then off to their own lives. And that will change me, and them. So each day I try to pay attention to the story that God is writing through their lives, and mine.

In my book Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life, I wrote about how to listen to God through your life.  I suggested that we can hear the voice of God through our circumstances, if only we pay attention. When we think about questions like “How have I struggled?” and “What do I love?” and “What is my desire?” we might begin to see some of the elements of the story God is telling to us and through us.

What is the story God wants to tell through your life? Your struggles, your loves and your God-given desires shape who you are, and give important clues about what God is up to in and through your life. God is speaking to you. The trick is, to pay attention.

Quotable

“We are like plants, full of tropisms that draw us toward certain experiences and repel us from others. If we can learn to read our own responses to our experience—a text we are writing unconsciously every day we spend on earth—we will receive the guidance we need to live more authentic lives.”

“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

                                                                ---Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak.

Deeper Connection

What is the story of your life about? How would you answer the questions: what do I love? How have I struggled? How would you have answered those same questions ten years ago? 

Book Reviews

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
by Donald Miller
Thomas Nelson
Retail Price: $19.99
Amazon Price: $13.59

First of all, if you love good writing, it’s worth your time just to read Miller’s lyrical prose. But beyond that, this book asks some important questions about story.

In his beautifully rambling style, Miller talks about the insights he gained about story when he’s asked to help write a screenplay about his own life. A good story, he points out, has conflict, but the conflict is resolved and the hero of the story is changed. He realized that his life was not that exciting, and began to wonder what he could do to tell a better story, and to wonder whether God might be calling him to live a better story.

In the introduction, Miller points out that if you went to a movie where the hero’s goal was to save enough money to buy a Volvo, and that was the climax of the movie, him buying the Volvo and driving it away, you’d feel like you wasted your time and money on that movie. It’s not a very good story.  But that is the story many of us our writing with our lives—trying to acquire certain trappings, or security. Despite the fact that we realize trying to acquire a Volvo is not a compelling life goal, Miller writes, that is what many of us do. “But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

As he explores what it means to live an interesting story, Miller talks about changes he made in his own life to take risks and jump into a better story.  In his laid back way, Miller encourages his readers to do the same thing. To think about story, especially your own story, and be willing to change your story by taking some risks.

Keri’s monthly “For Your Soul” column provides encouragement and soul care for leaders. Check it out at http://www.christianitytoday.com/childrensministry/features/foryoursoul.html

If you are interested in having Keri speak to your group and would like to watch video of her speaking, go to www.keriwyattkent.com/speaking.htm and click on the link to YouTube videos. 

Check out Keri’s blog, Deep Breathing for the Soul, at www.keriwyattkent.com/soul/   You can read Keri’s latest musings on the connection between faith and real life, you can post a question about any of her books or other writings.

Keri is on Facebook and Twitter! Friend her, follow her, send her a message there.

Speaking & Events

Keri will be speaking at the Karitos Festival of the Arts July 15-17, at Living Waters Church, Bolingbrook, IL. Learn more and register at www.karitos.com. (click on the link to “literary arts” to find her workshops).

Keri’s fall speaking calendar is filling up. It’s possible to “piggy-back” events near each other, so if you are located near any of the already scheduled events you may want to consider having Keri speak at your event on the same trip. For details, contact her at www.keriwyattkent.com/speaking.htm

Fall events:

September 25: Downers Grove, IL—Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity keynote at event.

October 1-3: Junction City, KS—Listen retreat.

October 14: Indianapolis, IN—Simple Compassion keynote at church event.

October 16: Long Grove, IL—Keynote at church event.

October 30: Chicago, IL—Simple Compassion workshop at Breakthrough Urban Ministries.

November 8: Marietta, GA—Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity keynote at event.