Telling my Story

I had taken a hiatus from reading Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, but this morning I picked it up again. At the beginning of the book he talked about a friend named Bob who wrote down everything he remembered. Which I think is a great idea and I've been debating with myself if maybe I should start to do the same thing. I just read the chapter where Donald met Bob for the first time, and let me tell you, Bob and his family LIVE AN AMAZING STORY. I won't tell it to you because I think you all need to go read the book and find out for yourself. It's fantastic. Do you know what I thought though after I read it?

EPIC FAIL EMILY. Sitting at my desk, checking facebook, talking to a college friend on instant messenger, and reading a book. What kind of story is THAT???? Fail Emily, fail. So I'm back to thinking about my story. What kind of story is my life telling?



Something that I started early this fall/late over the summer for the youth is the "picture of the week". Every week  (or almost every week) I put up a new picture of something that the youth have done recently and everyone at church on Sunday morning can see what the youth are up to. Then when I switch pictures I put the old picture of the week on a wall in my office. I now have 34 and soon 35 pictures of the week on my office wall. It's my favorite thing in my office. It's fun to look back and see what stories the pictures tell. When people come in my office they often say how much they like looking at all of the pictures. The youth sometimes request which picture they would like up for the picture of the week that week.

Pictures tell stories. On my facebook I have an application for "picture of the day". I haven't been paying much attention to them a whole lot lately, but I'm going to change that. I want to remember why I felt like taking that picture was important. So here is the picture from yesterday (today's isn't posted yet):



This was taken my junior year at Concordia. It was my third trip to the Appalachian Mountains over spring break to do service work. The location my team was working at was called the 4th World House, and it was my second year in a row working at that site. A couple named Vincent and Fronchet lived there. Fronchet liked to make us food, and it was delicious. In the picture is Matt (white shirt) and Nick (green shirt). Matt and I had worked at this house the previous year, and this was Nick's first time in Appalachia. We were putting up insulation in the basement of the house. I was recovering from a broken leg at the time so I wasn't able to do a whole lot of work that week so I took pictures. A lot of them, many of them being silly and ridiculous. So I probably took this picture to show that we actually did do work that week. It was a good time. Matt and I had gotten to be good friends over the two trips to Appalachia we had gone on together, and he enjoyed making short jokes (like everyone else). Nick and I also bonded on this trip. He's the ultimate hippie, and it makes me smile.

So . . . I don't know how much of a story that is, but it's a story. I think I like it.