Storytelling

Stories have been in my blood since I first heard about that little piggy who trotted off to the market.  As soon as I learned that those curious curlicues on the page formed sounds which somehow formed pictures in my mind and stories in my head, I was a reading addict for life.  In fact, I was that child who would disappear into my book, only to find myself (and rightly so) in hot water a few hours later for ignoring my math, chores, or some such down-to-earth responsibility.    

There was hardly a gap between my figuring out that if those curious curlicues on the page told stories, and I could master those curious curlicues, then I too could tell stories.  From that moment on, storytelling has been in my blood as well.  From the age of five, I have always had a story “in the works.” 

 

I hawked my stories to my aunt.  I entered them in contests.  I came home from the library with a chin-high stack of books on Scotland, because my next novel was set therein.  I scoured name books for hours, searching for just the right name for my protaganist.  And guess what?  I still have stories “in the works.”  I still love every bit of fashioning a world in which the only boundaries are the breadth of my creativity and the size of my hard drive.

 

In the world of storytelling, I am always drawn to the compelling, tear-jerking, life-changing sorts of stories, and again and again I find myself coming out with a bitter taste in my mouth and defeated hopes after reading a pathetic attempt by a modern author at just that sort of story.  But I return again and again to the love story of Hosea and Gomer—it is the most beautiful one I have ever read.  The story of Israel and her God is one of the most heartbreaking.  And the story of David and Jonathan warms my heart with a friendship the likes of which most people have never known. 

 

Those stories are a writer’s deepest well from which to dip inspiration: God is a Master Storyteller, and because of Him we love stories and love sharing meaningful ones.  It truly is in our blood.  In fact, we each are in the middle of our own epic stories, and if you are a Christian, the Author has whispered in your ear, “It’s all right—it ends happily.”  With relief, you can make it through the tragedy that intervenes because your story ends happily ever after in the truest and most complete sense of the cliché. 

Any story has a villian, however, and so does storytelling.  It has been grossly perverted by Satan, for he knows that a good story can change a life.  Stories now are lowered to the level of pure entertainment, thrill rides for the reader and money in the bank for the author.  But God didn’t give us the story-telling gene so we could be amused.  He gave it to us so He could communicate the greatest story of all to our hearts and so we could pass the story on. 

 

So what would happen if in your story-telling, you told only the stories that were worthy of being told?  In your reading, if you read only the stories that were worthy of being read?  And in your living, if you lived only the story the Author wanted you to live?  I know what would happen: those compelling, tear-jerking, life-changing stories would begin to emerge in ways you never imagined. 

Photo Credit: Reading in Public