For the Love of stories

Ever notice when someone is telling a story and the room goes quiet. . .

I love listening to people tell their stories. It doesn’t have to be anything profound or deeply personal, it could just be a funny snippet about what happened to them in the drive thru or at the eye doctor, but once they start telling it I’m hooked.

My family and I just spent the last eight years living in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. One of the greatest things about living in a small town is that people are good at socializing. There’s not a lot to do, so we drink coffee and we tell stories.

When we first moved to a small town we hadn’t managed to sell our old house yet, so we lived for six months with an elderly widower who had a beautiful log house on his farmland. We only had one kid then and he wasn’t even a year old, so at the end of the day when our baby was in bed we would sit around the widower’s table drinking small glass cups of pop from the co-op and he would tell us hilarious stories of what it was like growing up in rural Saskatchewan.

There were stories about what it was like driving open cab tractors in the middle of winter (he was still trying to warm up fifty years later), and one about a goat that loved to eat chewing tobacco.

All of our lives are stories. They intertwine and fracture, and piece back together again. Sometimes it feels like our story has stopped altogether. Like it never made it past the prologue and its not going anywhere.

Sometimes it feels like our story is out of control and some cruel maniac is writing it.

My daughter’s middle name is Hope. I chose that name because the years leading up to her birth were dark and hopeless. I struggled with being a stay at home mother, I felt like I had been dragged to Ninevah like Jonah. I remember when I could no longer keep my paramedic license active and had to let it lapse. I remember it hurt. A lot. I felt like I had lost a piece of my identity. I was proud to be a paramedic. I wore a uniform that made people look at me. When I turned on my lights and siren cars would literally part in front of me to get out of my way. I was important. I mattered. The work I did made a difference in people’s lives.

But I didn’t feel like that as a mother. I felt useless. I felt trapped. I felt lost.

I used to watch as someone’s heart would start beating again and they would come back from the grip of death. Now I put snacks in bowls and cleaned up poop… What had my life become?

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.” Hebrews 6:19

My daughter is named Hope because of that Bible verse. I love that image. An anchor for the soul. Firm and secure.

I don’t look back on my first years as a mom with rose colored glasses. I don’t think I parented those tough years at all well. When I look back on those days I see the spiraling depression. The dark, cold winters with no end in sight. I see years of toil and struggle with a husband who worked long days six days a week. I see the heartache of leaving friends behind, and trying to make new ones at thirty years old, which is just awkward for so many reasons. I see anger as I lose my temper at my kids for the hundredth time. I see lots of yelling.

Beyond my long list of failures, there is one golden thread that stands out. Christ. My anchor. Holding steadfast and true. Carrying me through to the other side. I couldn’t see Him when I was in the valley of shadows, but I can see it so clearly now.

Maybe you have a similar story. Maybe you’re in the valley of shadows or maybe you’re just coming out of it. Maybe your story feels like it has stalled, or taken a dark turn you can’t seem to rewrite. But there is an anchor.

And that anchor is firm and secure.

That is my story. That is my testimony. What’s yours?