Stories

"Blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said will be done to her." --Luke 1

Since a few weeks before Christmas came, we've been meditating on the first few chapters of Luke on Sunday mornings. For the last three or four Christmases, I've been spending the time leading up to the holidays asking God what he would have to say to me about the coming of his son, to give me some sort of new word about what this ritual means to the connection of my spirit and his. This year, however, having virtually given up on any intentional spiritual effort, I forgot about this tradition. I suppose it may have entered my mind a time or two, but I never took the time to really sit down and seek it out.

In God's infinite grace and merciful remembrance of me, it seems that he has brought a word to me, regardless of my contributed effort. The idea that is continually running through my mind is the concept of story. Since we began thinking through Advent and these early words of Luke, I can't get that word, story, out of my mind. There seems to be little accompanying the word by way of interpretation or specifics, but I get this sense that God is speaking to me about the story he is writing on my life, the story he had in mind for his son on this earth, and how those two things are intersecting.

I am in the closing chapters of my "College Story." This fact I know all too well. I'm sure you all are tired of hearing about it, but somehow this idea of story that keeps repeating itself seems connected to the twilight of this small part of my story. It is significant, yes, but it is part. Although I have a shady outlined idea of what even the entire next year might look like, I know little details of the coming story. I find myself wondering what this message about "story" means because I feel like I have less questions about "what comes next" than most college graduates. I am not seeking a gigantic revelation about what to seek next-- I'm lucky (or maybe unlucky, depending) to be studying something in school that pretty clearly defines my career path: teaching and art.

Our study of Luke seems to continually weave threads of consecration and dedication through each of the characters. Beginning with the birth of John the Baptist, God calls the child out for his purposes before his parents are even able to hold him with their own hands. This child is mine. Throughout these passages, angels and prophets keep saying things about John and Jesus like, "You have no idea what story will be written for these children."

We watch as each person dedicates their lives to the Lord, things change. Simeon gives Mary the good news that her child will "pierce her heart like a sword," and John will never be able to bury his own father. Often we remind each other on Sundays that following Christ will cost us everything, but it will be worth it.

This morning, in continued attempt to decipher this idea of story in my life and the sense of calling that surrounds my spirit these days, I wonder if these words have something to do with all the culminations I find myself in the midst of these days. I feel like I'm so close to teaching-- I can almost taste it in the air, like the salt of the ocean. This is something that I feel has been written on my heart for my entire life. For as long as I can remember, I've been waiting for the chance to have a classroom all my won. I'm on the cusp of diving in, full-bodied. The thing that my story has been about for approximately 17 years is about to be real. The thing I've been preparing for, anticipating is within reach.

I am often hesitant to speak with such certainty. I do not like nailing lists of things on doors and, as Rob Bell has suggested, I do not live with brick walls. And I think for this reason it seems strang for me to want to say that this is the thing I was made to do, that this-- teaching-- is the thing-- yet, I can't help but repeat it like a poem. And maybe there will come a day when I am led somewhere else, when the winds change and I move to a new current. But these days, the thing I think about is teaching. This is the story that's being written for me for now and I can't wait to step into it fully.