Once Upon a Time: Discovering Our Forever After Story

  It’s the same in life. We can usually tell immediately when someone in our family acts “out of character.” It immediately raises red flags for us. The more we are able to understand the people around us, the easier it is to accept their actions and to love them.

  ASKING WHY

  We go even deeper to learn why a character is the way he is. As a writer, I keep asking the relentless why, followed by what if? Why did my hero walk away from that fight? Why does my heroine need to check and double-check the locks on the door every time she goes out?

  Once, while conducting a workshop, I asked the participants how their heroine would react to a spider on the kitchen countertop. Their answers were most telling. One had her heroine scream and call for help. Another gently scooted the spider onto a piece of paper and carefully deposited it outdoors. And another quickly swept the spider into the kitchen sink, turned on the water until it was down the drain, and then reached for the garbage disposal switch.

  Two people may act the very same way, enough so that a person observing the action could conclude that they are exactly alike. And usually nothing could be further from the truth. When I’m home in Port Orchard, I wake early in the morning so that I have time to do my Bible reading, journal writing, and devotionals and still get to the local high school swimming pool in time to swim laps with a wonderful group of friends who love the smell of chlorine in the morning as much as I do. I’ve been swimming laps for over twenty years now. An outside observer might see me and the other swimmers there at six in the morning, all donning swim caps and easing into the water. If he’s a high school student, he may not see the twenty-plus-years difference between my age and the octogenarians who swim with me. Perhaps he concludes that we are looking to fill our retirement days with an activity. Because we are using the high school pool, he may imagine we have limited resources and avail ourselves of this pool even though it means we have to come at what might appear to him to be an ungodly hour. He may even think it seems kind of sad that we don’t horse around and have fun instead of getting to work completing our laps.

  This imaginary student didn’t dig deep enough, and because he didn’t, his conclusions are wrong. I swim before starting a full day in which I’ll write a predetermined number of manuscript pages, connect with my agent or my publicist, and manage a staff of six. I might have a lengthy discussion with my editor or my publisher. I might have meetings on a variety of subjects. In a single day I am often required to make so many decisions that by midafternoon my head is spinning. I might rush home from that pool to quickly do my hair in time for a video shoot or a meeting with some of the Seattle Seahawks (my favorite team) about charity possibilities. Despite what my imaginary student might think after a casual observation, my life is far from empty. It’s the same for my fellow swimmers as well.

  He was wrong about limited resources, too. If I chose to, I could have a pool built at our home so that I wouldn’t have to leave the house, get in the car, and drive to the high school pool every morning.

  So why do I do it?

  Over the years the adult swimmers have become my friends. Pool time with them is one of the touchstones of my life. Every Christmas I prepare a special tea for these special friends. We’ve made it a practice to arrive at the pool ten or so minutes before it formally opens and wait together in the lobby, chatting and visiting. But once the doors open, it’s serious business. We can’t wait to get into the water and start our workout. I can see the difference regular exercise has made in our health, too. When someone can reach the age of eighty or ninety and move with the grace of someone many years younger, that inspires me. And seeing that this routine and regular exercise keeps our minds just as nimble has made me a believer.

  Besides, I’ve been a fish ever since I was nine years old. One of my favorite pictures of me as a kid was taken when I was about four or five. I’m standing in the middle of a wading pool with the water barely above my ankles. My arms are spread wide like wings and there is a look of sublime joy on my face. It’s as if I’m saying to the world, “Look at me.” Swimming was one of those seeds God planted in my life that has continued to grow.

  The point of this is to show how superficial judgments can lead to faulty conclusions. When it comes to examining the motivations of the people and circumstances in your own life, don’t make the mistake of forming quick and sometimes faulty assumptions. Very often there’s a lot more to it.

  MAKING CHOICES

  Another way we explore motivations and dig deeper is through examining the choices a character—or a person—makes. Think about it: every time we make a choice, we show who we are. In the example I gave at the beginning of this chapter, Jo Marie shows us what she is made of, even in the throes of deep grief. Rather than continue her comfortable life in Seattle as an upwardly mobile banking professional, she reaches for a challenge, a choice that helps her deal with her grief. That decision tells us something about her.

  Both Wayne and I are working hard to stay fit. We each bought a little meter called a FitBit. This tiny device totals our steps every day. Because I have a sedentary job I rarely get in my ten thousand steps a day, but I average a good six to seven thousand, and on good days manage to meet my goal. For the last several weeks we’ve been challenging each other to do better, to be more active. Wayne is actually far more athletic than I am. He regularly plays golf and bikes, but he was laid low recently by a shoulder surgery. Because Wayne’s been tied up doing a lot of physical therapy, I’ve bested him quite a bit recently. Naturally I make sure he knows I’ve outdone him. He hasn’t taken kindly to that, and a good-natured competition has arisen. I laughed when I caught him trying to place his FitBit on Bogie, our very active little dog. It was too funny but it just shows how determined he was to find a way to best me. There’s nothing like a little competition to keep us moving.

  PUSHING BUTTONS

  One of the best ways to develop plot is to place a character in a situation where his or her buttons are pushed. Like my example earlier of the spider on the kitchen countertop, the character’s actions reveal who he or she really is.

  Being a sports fan, I can attest to the fact that a game is never more fun than when your team is up against the wall and comes out fighting. That’s when you see what your team is made of.

  It’s the same with the people in our lives. Those who know how best to push our buttons do so in order to rile us enough that we reveal our weaknesses. In life, this is where we sometimes fail because those we love know how to get under our skin faster and better than anyone else. They don’t need to think twice when it comes to saying or doing the one thing that irritates us most . . . the one thing that is sure to get a rise out of us. I once heard someone say that family is about loving each other at the top of our lungs. It’s true. We often don’t know we have hidden anger or resentment to root out until someone hits us where it hurts. And then, by heaven, watch out.

  Besides pushing buttons, some of the other things that can often reveal hidden motivations are family secrets, a character’s worst fear, his greatest hope, or even his biggest dream. If you get stuck in the telling of your own story, stop for a moment and examine what it is that’s preventing you from moving forward. What has happened in your life that’s preventing you from examining the past? What is it about the people in your life? Or perhaps it’s something about yourself that needs perusal. The key to this, naturally, is to know yourself. And you know what? We need to know God in order to know ourselves, and we do that by digging into His Word, by listening to Him, by spending time with Him on a regular basis.

  READING BETWEEN THE LINES

  Sometimes discovering the story behind the story requires reading between the lines. For the last year I’ve been reading a devotional that gives background on the hymns and hymn writers, highlighting events that led to the songs that have withstood the test of time. These are the songs with deep spiritual depth and theology that resonate with the soul. I love singing the praise songs, but the hymns
of yesteryear—“The Old Rugged Cross,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Amazing Grace”—will always remain some of my favorites.

  One I read about recently was the children’s song “Jesus Loves Me,” written by Anna Bartlett Warner. I learned that Anna and her sister taught Bible study classes to the cadets at West Point for many years. When Anna died in 1915, she was so loved by the staff and cadets that she was buried with military honors.

  What stood out in my mind, however, while reading this devotional was a sort of postscript—a one-line sentence regarding an incident from 1972. At the time, Communist China was still closed to the world. Chinese Christians were persecuted and faith in Christ was banned. All outgoing mail was strictly censored. However, one letter mailed by a Chinese Christian passed inspection. It simply said that the “This I Know” society was alive and well. The message was taken from the childlike line from the song Anna Warner composed to teach children about Jesus: “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

  Through the years when China was closed to the world, these faithful Christians found a way to inform the outside world that their love for Jesus remained strong and their faith in Him hadn’t faltered. They were able to bear witness to their character—to what continued to motivate them—by inserting one cryptic phrase between the lines.

  It’s the same for us. Sometimes we will find the motivating force of those “characters” around us only by reading between the lines. It keeps coming back to digging deep.

  WHAT DO WE WANT?

  Writers will tell you that one of the most important questions we ask is, “What does my character want?” If we know what he wants, we know how to create conflict (by making it difficult for him to obtain) or keep tensions high by withholding the very thing he wants.

  As we tell our stories, a strategy that might not take long is to create a list that answers the question. Think about your own life. What is it you want? It isn’t as easy to identify as it might sound. If I asked you to write down five things that you really want (and told you you couldn’t write down “world peace”) it probably wouldn’t take you very long to hand me back a list that skims the surface. My guess is you’d say:

  Good health for me and my family

  To be out of debt

  To be happy

  To find fulfillment in my work

  To have a closer relationship with God

  The truth is we all want those same things. Health addresses the physical. Seeking to be debt free is about the financial. When we ask to be happy, we’re talking about the emotional. Finding fulfillment in work seeks to satisfy both a mental and an emotional need. And looking to have a closer relationship with God speaks to that spiritual hunger we have. These are all good desires. But I believe we are complex beings, and there are other desires, dreams we’ve been afraid to voice. It was certainly that way with me when I held onto the hope of one day being a writer. I didn’t dare tell my family or friends because it seemed like such an unattainable dream.

  Think about your own desires and try again, digging deep. If there wasn’t a single obstacle blocking your path, what would you be doing? Recently I accepted this challenge myself and made a list of five things that seemed completely beyond the realm of possibility for me. These dreams are so big that when I mentioned the first one to Wayne, he grabbed at his heart and staggered backward. What I loved most about this exercise is that I know there is nothing within my own power I can do to make this list a reality. If any one thing on this list comes to pass I will know it came directly from God.

  What was it on my list that caused Wayne to grab at his heart? I want the ability to give away ten million dollars in one year to further God’s kingdom on earth. Ten million . . . Oh, and since I was dreaming very big, I put down owning part or all of the Seattle Seahawks football franchise. Why not? We serve an amazing God.

  WHAT’S BEHIND WHAT WE WANT?

  Let’s get back to your story. If you were to make a list of five audacious goals, what would they be? Don’t be afraid. Dig deeper. Take the desire to be debt free as an example. What do you suppose is behind that need? Perhaps you have a deep-seated need for security and any kind of debt is uncomfortable. Or maybe you’re deeply in debt and your pride won’t let anyone else help, even though you’re one step away from disaster. As we keep digging, we understand ourselves more and more. And that digging reveals new truths whether it’s about a character in a story or about us personally, living our very own stories.

  Sometimes it feels emotionally painful to talk about going beyond the surface. After all, it can be pretty uncomfortable to reveal the desires of our hearts. Rose-colored glasses and all. But if we are serious about telling our stories and we want to follow the Lord’s example, we can’t shy away from examining our hearts. He didn’t. “Immediately Jesus knew in His spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and He said to them, ‘Why are you thinking these things?’ ” (Mark 2:7–9).

  Storytelling Prompt

  Answer the question: what is it you truly want? Try to get to some of your deepest motivations. See if you can unpeel the layers and find out what’s at the core. One of the tricks to going deeper is to keep telling yourself over and over, “That’s good, but what else?”

  The Narrator

  As we begin to tell our story, we need to examine who the narrator is. Remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and having discussions about the narrator, Nick Carraway? In many ways he was more important than Daisy and Gatsby, because we watched the story unfold through his eyes.

  It’s the same with our stories. They are told through our own narration, and sometimes that narrator is not reliable. We often tell ourselves things that are damaging, and these things can creep into our stories. Listen to yourself as you talk. Do you say things like, “I’m not very good at . . . ,” or “I’ve never been able to . . . ,” or “I was always clumsy and nothing will ever change that”?

  I grew up under a cloud of dire prophecy. I remember hearing my third-grade teacher tell my mother, “Debbie is a sweet little girl, but she’ll never do well in school.” When I finally got up the nerve to share my dream of writing, another teacher told me, “You can’t write, Debbie. Why, you can’t even spell.” And who could ever forget the words, “Let’s just go straight to the Chubby Department, Debbie. They’re sure to have your size there.” It took me years of examining those narrations and refuting them one by one to get past them. That’s why I cheered for Aibileen in the book The Help when she gathered little Mae Mobley in her arms and had her repeat, “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” Aibileen knew the value of speaking truth into this emotionally battered little girl’s life.

  God’s Word emphasizes this as well in Proverbs 23:7a: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” As you tell your story, examine parts of it that may have slipped into your telling. Is that true? Who told you that? Try to see your story from God’s perspective. If you’ve always felt that you were somehow deficient, get to know the God who delights in you. That’s right, He used the word delight. “The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (Ps. 147:11).

  Make sure your story reflects that.

  Seven

  AND IT CAME TO PASS . . .

  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

  —PHILIPPIANS 3:13–14

  When we think about story, the first thing that comes to mind is plot. Simply put, the plot is the what-happens-next of the story. If you’ve ever eavesdropped while two little girls play Barbie dolls together, you’ll recognize plot. As each girl hops those spiky little high-heeled Barbie feet along the floor you can hear their alternating high-pitched voices:

  “Pretend she picked up the dog and started to walk away—” says one as she squeezes
a tiny stuffed dog under her Barbie’s arm.

  “But I wouldn’t let you because it was my dog and she didn’t have permission—” The second Barbie tries to poke the dog out from under Barbie number one’s arm, followed by the sound of hard vinyl bouncing off hard vinyl as two angry Barbies tussle over the dog.

  “And when you dropped the dog, I picked it up—” Said dog is again stuffed under Barbie’s arm.

  “But the dog ran away.”

  This kind of plot building goes on as long as the players are prepared to play or until one of the Barbies loses her head and needs to go to the pretend hospital.

  Plot, like serious Barbie action, refers to the series of events that comprise a story. Sometimes the story is told in a chronological fashion, starting at the beginning and moving through a sequence of events until the final culminating scene. At other times the story is told by starting somewhere in the middle, perhaps where the most compelling action takes place, and then working backward, weaving in the backstory through a series of flashbacks occasionally interrupting the forward story.

  MY FIVE ELEMENTS OF STORY

  The challenge I set for myself long ago was to have five elements in each story I write. First, I want the story to be provocative—my goal is to make my readers think. My 2011 book A Turn in the Road is a good example of this. If you were to take a lengthy road trip, where would you drive, and who would you choose to travel with you? Or another book, Twenty Wishes, asks, If you were making a list, what would you wish? I want to provoke my reader to apply what’s happening in this fictional tale to his or her own life.