Slowly, ever so slowly….

Sometimes your story isn’t the Legends of the Fall or Last of the Mohicans, or God forbid, The Notebook.  It isn’t extravagant and wild -dancing in a thunderstorm.  It doesn’t come with a flash and a bang like fireworks exploding in a summer night sky.  Sometimes it doesn’t overwhelm you, suffocate you, and flood your being.  No… sometimes it comes slowly… creeping steadily into the facets of your normal everyday… filling in cracks of time that you didn’t know were vacant… taking up your Friday nights, weekend afternoons and your days.  It comes in the form of cooking meals together after work.  Running errands.  Going to the gym.  Watching a Redbox on the couch.  Doing yardwork.  Normal  life... 

And one day you realize that your time and thoughts and even heart have been infiltrated … and it doesn't look anything like you thought it would. 

Does anything look like we thought it would?

Finding your purpose?  Building your Career?  Meeting your someone?  Making a difference?  Raising a family?  Do any of our ambitions pan out the way we expected?  No… often, it is harder, messier, and more rewarding than any of our fairy tale dreams.

And that is life: a slow, unraveling story different and better than your most cherished expectations.  Sometimes it drags and you don’t know what the Author is doing or thinking.  You want to shout: “Get to the point already!  What is happening with these characters?!  Where is this story going?!!”   You want to put it down and pick up something more stimulating.  You want suspense and drama!  You desire heated romance and death defying feats.  You turn to other things looking for your cravings to be met… but when you remain unsatisfied, you concede and pick up the story again.  And what you get is the steady revealing of dynamic characters whose end is unclear and to whom anything is possible.
  

There are days (many in fact) where I wish I could read the Sparks Notes on my life- where I wish I could skip to the synopsis and see, in a glance, the beginning, middle and end.  Just to know.  But there is something lifegiving about the uncertainty. The maybe’s and possibilities.   Especially when I know and trust the Author.  I have faith in His ability to write a worthy and excellent story.  He is not a novice writer fumbling with paper and pen.  He is the Great Storymaker.  And I am blessed to be a character written on to the pages of His grand tale. 

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And so, I take heart.  When life is uncertain and feels monotonous and dull… when I don’t know the next turn in the plot or how long I’ll be walking down this dusty, barren road… when I wonder “Where is this story going?!” and lose interest …  I remember: Sometimes the best things come slowly… and I patiently (and painfully) pick myself back up and try to turn another page.