Our Story

So Amanda will probably get mad that I am writing another blog before she does but I really wanted to share some thoughts on a sermon I just listened to. Donald Miller, a well known author and familiar name to most of you I am sure, recently spoke at Mars Hill Bible church in Grand Rapids Michigan. I am a big fan of Mars Hill and receive their weekly message via podcast. So, I noticed Miller was speaking and decided to take a listen today while I was working. His message was on how our lives are basically a story, which is not exactly a new idea, but his twist on the idea was amazing. One of the things I have been learning as Amanda and I have been engaged is that we are living out this new story about our life together and really what that story is playing out to be. Miller explains in his message what is required in a story or movie in order for it to be interesting to the reader/viewer. A story has to have a main character or protagonist. A story has to have some sort of conflict, a story has to have a point of climax, and finally a story has to have some sort of resolve at the end. Miller goes on to talk about how many times in the Christian faith we kind of cut off our chances of letting God play out this story in our life with sayings such as "well, God closed that door." I found this very interesting because I myself have used that phrase before and I am sure many of you have as well. Miller mentions this mindset to point out that we should not defeat our own stories by giving up on a situation or defeat ourselves by assuming if something is not the way we imagined it would be that there is something wrong in our lives. God picks up at the point of our mistakes and creates the story from there. God knocks down the door he doesn't close it. These two ideas kind of struck me to the core. It is really easy to water down our own story rather than just live out a great story. So I started thinking about how this idea applies to Amanda and I's story together. We want to have a great story. You can't just want to have a great story though, you have to live out a great story, you have to be that story. Don gives an example of a friend of his whose wife just had a baby and how this husband was telling Don how much more in love with his wife he was now than when they got married. The sad thing was, he wasn't doing anything to show his wife that love so this love only existed in the husbands story. We have to live out our stories. I think Amanda and I are going to have a great story. We had great stories before we even met. But I dont just want to have a great story with her, I want us to be a great story. God uses every aspect of our lives to help push our story forward, we just have to keep on living. Sounds simple enough, but it is very easy to get bogged down with the crap life throws at you. I was very encouraged and challenged by this message and hope that this blog is a reality check for others as well.

On a side note...we have done basically zero planning the past few weeks. Instead we have just been hanging out and enjoying being together. We went on a great date Tuesday night, something we haven't done since we got engaged really. Next week we are heading back to South Carolina for Thanksgiving and then finishing up with school for the semester. Thanks as always to everyone who is watching out for us and supporting us through this process of writing our new story. We love you all!