On Being a Storyteller
I have always loved stories.
I come from a long line of readers, storytellers, poets, and musicians who craft fables out of foibles, legends out of family adventures. Stories have shaped my worldview and my inner life. Some of my earliest memories include being curled up on the couch with my paperback Little House in the Big Woods or Anne of Green Gables, fully sinking into the delight and tragedy and triumph of the Ingalls family and that “red-headed snippet”, Anne Shirley. I am a firm believer that nearly every epic tale in book or film is ultimately derivative of the Greatest Story ever told: something made, something lost; something found, something redeemed, something renewed.
As a pastor’s wife who is also a writer, I am constantly cataloguing input — new ideas, my circumstances, the reactions of church members, new data about a subject, the socio-political landscape, the many things happening at church — and I’m telling myself a story about those things. I am beholding the constant stream of information and, in literature-speak, I am “crafting a narrative” about my experiences, in hopes of extracting meaning.
For example, I hear of a small group at our church quietly meeting a significant need for a family experiencing tragedy and I tell myself a story of God’s creative provision through His people. I hear about a group of bickering dissenters, grumbling about a direction or decision our pastoral team made and I tell myself a story about, you know, “those people” in the church.
I observe a literal miracle of healing and intervention in the life of a child and I tell myself a story about the real-time, on-time God who still works in dramatic and intentional ways. I walk alongside a family breaking apart, and as I grieve for the innocent being wounded by unrepentant sin, I tell myself a story about God who apparently doesn’t always intervene to restore and rescue.
This is how it played out more recently: one Sunday morning, as the dashboard began lighting up and our vehicle began making terrible sounds on the way to church, I began to tell myself another story.
Well, it just figures. How many times shall the minivan shudder and smoketh on the way to church, oh Lord? Do you remember that this is the vehicle we use literally for the Lord’s work? Do you recall, Lord, our salary and its limitations? WHAT DOST THOU HAVE TO SAY FOR THYSELF, oh God of mountains and might, who is fully capable of fixing a minivan??
As you can see, sometimes the story I tell myself is true and hopeful and faithful.
And other times? It really isn’t.
Whether you would call yourself a storyteller or not, you are also telling a story about the stuff of life. In fact, every single day we have the opportunity to interpret our experiences and tell ourselves a true story about God and self, one that sets us up for joyful trust —or a false story, one that sets us up for bitterness and frustration. I’m learning that the narrative I create as I experience and interpret the stuff of life and ministry is one that either forms me into a woman more prone to confess the faithfulness of God or it malforms me into a woman quick to judge God for not responding according to my desires. And all God’s people said: yikes.
On that particular Sunday of the smoking minivan, as I muttered distressed complaints under my breath, I began to experience a particular nudge. I use the term literally: it felt as though the Holy Spirit was actually poking my innards somewhere, elbowing me in my joined-to-Christ-self. The grumbling I’d attempted to disguise as “prayer” was no such thing. It was just plain ole, bad storytelling.
As I herded the kids through the parking lot, the story began to gently shift:
I have a choice here and if I keep going down this particular narrative path, it will not lead me into truth. What is the truth? Well for one, we’ve never had a vehicle problem or need that has not been provided for, practically or miraculously. Meeting with God’s people on Sundays matters and He takes joy in my presence. If I keep telling myself how horrible this is, I might miss what comfort and wisdom God has for me.
A keen observer might notice that the story I told myself originally was in the vein of the oldest objection in the book:
“did God really say…?” Did God really say He would never leave you nor forsake you? Because if He loved you, for sure you would not have to deal with this.*
A keen observer might also notice that the storytelling shift that happened mirrors Paul’s exhortation to the church at Corinth:
'For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, ‘ [2 Corinthians 10:3-5] emphasis mine
Friend, you have absolutely everything you need IN CHRIST to be a truth-teller. You have His all-sufficient grace that equips you to take captive the narrative of what if He doesn’t? and you have His divine power to transform that narrative into how will You meet me here?
We get the incredible privilege to be truth-telling storytellers, not only to our own hearts, but also to those we serve. As we wait with women expecting the doctor’s phone call, as we pray with bereaved friends, as we sit silently in the aftermath of tragedy — we can craft a narrative of bitter disappointment or of desperate hope in el Roi, the God who sees. As we offer presence to those in seasons of waiting, as we connect people with opportunities to use their gifts for God’s glory, as we honor and encourage those in our sphere of influence — we can craft a narrative of self-glory or of God’s unending glory and creativity in and through His people.
I want to be a storyteller who is being formed by the truest Story (and by the True Storyteller!). I want to be a woman who doesn’t repress or ignore the hard stuff, but who likewise refuses to be malformed by telling a false narrative about who God is in the valley of the shadow. It will take more than I have in myself to do this, in the face of smoking vehicles, broken & grieving families, and disappointed & discouraged Jesus-followers. But praise God, it is not just me up to the task, “for I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me - and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
And that truth alone is a story worth telling over and over and over again.
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Sarah Beth Sandel is a writer, wife, and mom who tends to talk too much once you get her going. She’s belonged to Jesus since she was a little girl and keeps finding that His goodness and faithfulness are unfailing (and she wishes she was less surprised by that, but hey - she’s growing)