Editing My Life :: Chapter 1

I have been reading Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years over the past six months.  I am not a big reader so it has been sort of a slow inhaling of information.  Probably the last month I have chosen to read one chapter a morning to get through it {and not forget what the last chapter was about}.  And it has been very revealing.  Donald Miller is a man after my own heart.  He is honest, blunt, and often unmotivated.  That is so me. 
I have felt like the past six months have been hard for me to find my place.  I enjoy being with my husband and have been blessed by some really great girlfriends.  But by myself, day to day, I was unhappy.  I didn’t want to work.  I lacked motivation to take care of our home.  People got under my skin.  I couldn’t get out of my rut. 

People who live good stories are too busy to write about them.  Nobody ever strapped a typewriter to the back of an elephant and wrote a novel while hunting wild game…I only say this because part of the reason my life had become uninspiring is I’d sat down to earn a living.  Literally, I sat in a chair and typed words.  And that’s fine, because I like the work, and it pays the rent.  But Jordan was right: my life was a blank page, and all I was putting on the page were words.  I didn’t want to live in words anymore; I wanted to live in sweat and pain.

As I started reading Donald Miller’s book, I began to see that I have a story, and I was choosing to not live it.  Sometimes it is hard to balance blogging with real life.  I have poured more of myself into it lately only to find in unsatisfying.  I love to write.  I love to share my story.  I love to interact with my readers.  But I was getting caught up in the draining of the internet and social networking world.  I was telling about my life but not fully living it. 
A lot has been going on in lives of those I care about around me.  It is hard stuff and it is exhausting.  But by having to be a part of it…to feel the sweat and pain of their burdens, I became a little less self centered.  I realized that I needed to give more of myself which ended up providing an awakening of my spirit.  That I couldn’t just sit around in my house and hide anymore.  I had to wake up and live. 

Here’s the truth about telling stories with your life.  It’s going to sound like a great idea, and you are going to be excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you’re not going to want to do it.  People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.  But joy costs pain. 

*Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing snippets of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and sharing about how I am striving to better live out my story.