The Best Story

It is amazing to me how quickly the days go by, I so thought I would write twice a week and yet I have so far only managed to think about it twice a week....bear with me as I learn this new habit and start to look at each experience to see if it is blog worthy.

I got a surprise visit from family and friends this weekend and it was great, got much accomplished and laughed...a lot!! While the kids were here, my darlin little Austin grabbed his favorite book (well one of them as he loves to read) and informed me it was story time. First we read The Magic School Bus, when that was done he came (backing up so as to get into a good position on my lap) with The Great Elephant by Niki Ranieri, now this happens to be one of my all time favorites as well, it is an amazing allegory! Although Quinn, a little mouse has spent his whole life hearing about the Great Elephant, he has never seen him. As he leaves home he unfortunately runs into trouble and starts to search for the Great Elephant. In his desperation to find him, Quinn follows what others in the forest tell him....that you need to work to see him...that he is at the end of this path..that he is a large golden statue..it is not until the little mouse is in grave danger and he calls out that the Great Elephant appears. It is a wonderful tale of finding God, beautifully illustrated and grandly told it captures your attention and your heart. Ahh how I love to read my little man stories!

Stories enlarge our world, the expand our limited perspective and help us to grow. They open up new worlds and thought processes...they stretch us. This happens whether you are 3 and sitting in your grandmas lap or whether you are an adult looking for answers and change.

I have started to meet with a few women for a book discussion group the last few weeks, watching what God has been showing us through the stories told in the book are amazing. It seems that hurt, forgiveness and healing are happening...through a story...it expands us and helps us gain a new understanding.

A child learns how to cry out to God in order to find Him, a woman understands the need to forgive so she may heal, we can see the hand of God in our everyday living...because of story. Think then that the Bible is the biggest story of all, a vast land of truth, it is filled with narrative, it gives us all the parts necessary...creation, the fall, redemption and restoration....perhaps it is time we focused on Gods word, spent more time reading the story, learning the connections and saw the whole picture so that we may benefit from Gods prose...from His word that comforts us...from the love He us given us in the form of our Bible....just a thought.