stranger than fiction?

Recently I have set about writing my story with the help of Dan Allender, author, psychotherapist, and founder of Mars Hill Graduate School. He has written a book called To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future that walks you through various exercises to help you remember the stories of your life and then write them down.

Anyway, as I was reading in the book that accompanies the workbook last night I was reminded of the movie Stranger Than Fiction. I saw it several weeks ago and it has quickly become one of my favorites. It stars Will Ferrell as Harold Crick. Harold is a boring, lonely, not-well-liked tax collector. Through the course of the story, he abandons the grinding drudgery of a life that he's been living, for one that is being written for him by an author that he cannot see but that he can hear. This new story that is being written for him is far more exciting than any he would have written for himself. He starts really living his life and not just existing anymore. At first he doesn't know how it will turn out, if he's in a comedy or a tragedy. But then he meets the author and reads the rest of his story. Even though he doesn't particularly like the ending, he trusts the author anyway and further gives up his life for the sake of the story.

It's such a good movie and I can relate to it on at least a couple levels. First, I used to live my life the same ol' boring way. And then I met this great Author, that I can't see but I can hear, and gave up my life to let him write a better story for me. Since I did that, life has just gotten so much richer. Life more abundant. Second, sometimes I feel I am in a comedy and other times I feel I must be in a tragedy. I don't know the ending but I know that for now my life is "stranger than fiction" because even on the days when I feel like a tragedy, the Author reminds me that he has a sense of humor and he always makes something beautiful out of pain, and then I feel like a comedy again. And I know that no matter what he writes, I trust him. I know he will write me into a story that is far beyond what I would ever have imagined for myself.

It's been really good getting into my life and digging around. Before I found the book I had told my dad that I wanted to remember more of my story and was thinking of writing it down. A couple days later I was at the Christian bookstore and the book seemed to lasso me and pull me right to it. It was perfect.