Is your life a story worth telling?

I recently ran across a quote that resonates with me:

Make your life a story to tell. Accumulate memories, not just possessions.

 

The quote reminds me of the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. After writing a successful memoir, Miller crawled into bed, avoided all responsibility, and found himself questioning the meaning of life. 

That’s when an unusual opportunity knocked on his door. Which motivated him to get out of bed and write meaning and risk and love into his narrative. Miller shares his experience in Million Miles, encouraging readers to live a story that’s worth telling.

Did you know there are benefits of telling our stories?

According to a Harvard Men’s Health Watch piece, “The Health Benefits of Writing your Life Story” and a Psychology Today article, “Resilience and 4 Benefits to Sharing Your Story”:

1. Telling your story can be therapeutic and build resilience as you explore troubling issues that happened in your past.

2. If you write your narrative in cursive, it can activate parts of the brain responsible for short- and long-term memory.

3. Telling your story can inspire hope in other people.

This thought from Iyanla Vanzant, speaker, author, and life coach:

Your story will heal you, and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.

Dan and I were on the Oregon coast this past week with son Jeremy and DIL Denise. Daughter Summer and SIL Josh and the grands joined us for a day.

Meals were enjoyed outdoors. Tiny crabs were caught and let go. Tide pools were explored (did you know if you gently touch a sea anemone, they close up? My grandsons from Uganda had never experienced such a thing in their young lives).

 

A hike took us past a lighthouse, up over a hill, and through mossy woods and flowering beauty to the next beach.

 

And Dan and I had more fun than two old people ought to be allowed as we accumulated more memories for a fuller, richer story. 

I’ve told this little story before, but it’s worth repeating. Ann Voskamp once sat next to an Orthodox Hassidic rabbi on a long flight. In the middle of their conversation, the rabbi turned to Ann:

Every morning that the sun rises and you get to rise? That’s God saying He believes in you, that He believes in the story He’s writing through you. He believes in you as a gift the world needs.

This notion is mind-bending to me.

Here is another day for God to add to the adventure He’s writing with us in mind, this best-selling Author who believes you and I are gifts the world needs, who believes we have something of value to offer.

What are we helping God write into our stories today? This week? This year?