A virtuous life is a life of adventure—of facing challenges, standing firm, rescuing the powerless, righting wrongs. A good adventure story dramatizes that adventure and makes it seem like the sort of life that nobody would want to miss out on. It doesn’t just tell the reader what’s right; it helps the reader to want what’s right.
Real life doesn’t always feel like a great adventure. Sometimes doing the right thing is rather dull. Great adventure stories remind us that in the end, the choices we make every day are the stuff of greatness. The world is changed by people who choose to tell the truth, to show kindness, to be courageous.
Our natural tendency is to burrow into our own little lives and so lose perspective on what really matters and what’s really true. Our good deeds start to seem irrelevant, and our bad deeds start to seem like they’re no big deal. We all need to step outside ourselves now and then—perhaps to try out another, better self, or perhaps, as David did, to see our own situation from another viewpoint.
I want to write stories that tell people that the everyday matters. That the little things in life, add up to greatness. I want to show that to people – and to remind people that God is working in the little things. First, I need to learn it. How is changing diapers, kissing boo-boos, and reading books heroic? Is it? Is it really?Sometimes I wonder if my life will always plug along like a little engine and stay on the tracks – not able to leave the tracks. Is it here that I get to look at the beauty my God has created. Wishing the hours by until naptime. At naptime, I wish the minutes to stand still so I can catch my breath. It is here that I ask the one question that I ask everyday:
Stay up and get stuff done?
Stay up and do fun stuff?
Take a nap?
I need to enjoy the moments when they are awake.
Although I pray for rest, peace, comfort, and ease - the days slowly going by offer me that - am I willing to see it?
So, how is my life heroic - how do I do great things by taking a boy to the bathroom, changing diapers, telling them to not touch the fireplace for the 1,000th time? is it great? Why do I seem to only want to "get through" this season in my life?
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