Of Ireland, Books, and the Stories We Tell
Books. Books. Books.
Some of my earliest memories are sitting in the tire swing under the elm tree at my childhood country home, swinging and reading, swinging and reading.
In the pages I was the princess, the hero, the junior detective.
As a teenager, the words written by Catherine Marshall, David Wilkerson, and C.S. Lewis helped form a budding faith as I grappled with theology, truth and my response to the Word Made Flesh.
Books continued to be my companions as I entered into marriage and motherhood. And recently, as I wrote in Under a Desert Sky, I became a witness to the ending chapters of my parents' stories as they lived out the final pages before my eyes. Those last words allowed me, in essence, to read their stories backwards, by the actions I had witnessed all my life.
As I move forward into the continual writing of my own story as the matriarch of the family, I do not want to lose the truth that I learned in that season, which is this:
Live your life with the last page in mind.
Now, this is not a post about last pages, but on the importance of the stories we tell.
Kevin and I just returned from Ireland. I had not realized until we were packing our suitcases that reading is considered a national pastime in Ireland, and not only reading, but storytelling.
(Maybe I am secretly Irish!)
During our ten-day stay, both Kevin and I acquired books, some new, some old and tattered, some with the corners turned down and the binding in pieces. We received a nature book by a teller of wildflower stories. We were handed a book about an ancient manuscript of the four Gospels by a white-haired historian. Another nature book came from the trunk of a car parked under a backdrop of canopied trees.
(How could this not be a fantastic vacation, when people kept handing us their most beloved books!)
We came home with a miniature book of Irish blessings and a heavy tome of Irish flowers. We were served dinner in a library restaurant with hard-covered volumes stretching from floor to ceiling, as we entertained ourselves by opening the musty-smelling pages while we lingered over apple tart and fresh cream.
I did not go to Ireland expecting to discover books, but the books seemed to discover us, and accompanying each volume, there is a story, a tale I will be sharing in the weeks ahead. Maybe three stories. Maybe four.
While I was in Ireland, I was reacquainted to the value of storytelling.
Where are you in your story? Have you turned a page? Do you find yourself in the middle where you aren't quite sure where the story will take you?
Is it a mystery? A thriller? A romance?
A bit of all three?
On your journey of faith, I pray you have the ability to keep your eyes on the final chapter, but oh, I also pray that you enjoy the pages as you live them!
That's the challenge isn't it?
Today I am pondering this thought in regard to this post: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV
