Thoughts Leading to a Book or Story

I'm inspired to write a quick note, both to help me not lose/forget my current inspiration, and to lay down the foundation for what I want it to be.

I've been reading and enjoying Chuck Klosterman's book "Killing Yourself to Live" recently, and I noticed that the most popular quote from the book by far is as follows -

"We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."

I love Chuck Klosterman's insight into human nature, but he always leaves me feeling a little melancholy. But up until last night I didn't know how to counter a statement like this. And now I think I do.

I think as a Christian, there is a call to turn this statement on its head. Because Chuck Klosterman is right - this is completely true, if you make any other human being your definition of what love is, they are going to fail you, and in a sense they win and you lose - but that doesn't mean there's no way out of this. And the challenge presented here as a Christian is to acknowledge this, and to instead put God in the place of that person who sets the template about how you love other people.

Easier said than done, right? Because if the Christian belief of God is true, then here is how God defines love - He gave His only son to die on the cross for our sins, "while we were still his enemies" as Romans says, in order that all of us could choose to be saved and return to Him. And He did this knowing that many of us would still choose to turn away from Him, ignore Him, or refuse to ask Him into our life.

In other words, God's definition of love is unconditional. It does not depend on what the other person decides, how the other person acts, etc. The same offer stands, regardless of how we respond, for every single one of us, no exceptions. And that is mind blowing.

And that, is what my book or story that I have started to create, is going to explore.

I've needed to write this story for a long time, but didn't know how. I didn't even know until last night when it hit me like a freight train, what it was I would want it to be about. I just knew I had to write something, someday, that really mattered. The books and such I've written thus far may have briefly touched on important issues, but mostly they were amusements, things I wrote for myself.

Now I'm going to write completely for others. Because I really have come to the conviction that by doing that, I can best serve God. If I can write something that enables other people to better understand even one iota of the way that God loves us through Christ, than I will have written something worth leaving behind. Jesus said, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Have I done this well in the past? Certainly not. All the relationships I have lamented and been nostalgic over that have failed, did so because I was unwilling to love unconditionally when others behaved in ways that upset me. I let their behavior dictate how I would love them. I apologize to anyone who has received this type of treatment from me over the years. It is not what you deserved from me.

Because that's not the way God loves us! I have learned so much about unconditional love this past year, especially through my amazing husband. We are neither of us perfect, but as long as we devote ourselves to this ideal as best we can, I see our marriage continue to flourish, even through horrible trials and grievous losses.

I know I'm gonna keep falling and having to pick myself up, and continuing to ask for God's Grace to cover my mistakes. That's a huge part of being a Christian. But knowing that, I can commit to trying this to the best of my ability, and still commit myself to living what I believe.

Because it's only by living it that I will be able to write it. And I'm ready to live it now to the fullest of my ability.

God willing, I will come up with something in the end, through this all, that is really worth reading. No matter how many years it takes.

So for now I will just say thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point - to all the friends who loved me when I didn't deserve to be loved, and to all the ones who continue to do so. Thank you for the countless individuals who inspired me, and who I know will keep doing it! When I look around me, I see how truly, truly blessed I have been in family, in friends, and in love. And I am confidant that however this turns out, God will continue to bless me so far beyond what I deserve.

So here goes something!!!

And I pray that I will not fall prey to the temptation that C.S. Lewis warned about in "The Great Divorce," the same temptation that has been pulling against me all my life as a writer -

"Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him."

God willing, that will not be my fate!