Beautifully Designed

I have been doing a lot of writing in recent weeks and am very excited about my book idea beginning to find its form.  However, I feel like I am neglecting my blog a bit in the process, so I apologize for my extended absence from you! 

I do want to share with you what I am learning as I am writing because I want you to be involved in the writing process as well.  In fact, I am toying with the idea of sharing some brief versions of what I have been writing about here in my blog and wonder if you might share whether or not you’d be interested in that? 

In the mean time, I will share what I am learning along the way…

In past blogs, I have written often about letting go of our old perspectives of the past and re-writing our life stories.  This is exactly what I am doing with my book, and there were so many situations and interactions that I am seeing from a different perspective as I write about them. 

I am finding that there is an inherently beautiful design in how things unfold, no matter how negative the situation or circumstance at the time.  Each person, each place, each circumstance and situation within that relatively tiny moment in time, has its meaning in the larger picture of my non-fictional story line.

If you look back on some of the people in your life who have popped in for a brief period and see the circumstances that surrounded that same period, can you see the bigger picture of what was really going on?  What about in the seemingly random situations you have found yourself in? 

A beautifully designed scene in nature.

A good novelist knows this and you know it when you read a good novel.  There are no characters and no situations presented within a good novel that aren’t deliberately placed there.  There is no information presented that doesn’t directly relate to the story or development of the main character. 

Such a good novel will incorporate things and people that don’t seem to fit at the time they are introduced, but in the end, they all make perfect sense in the bigger picture of the character and story.

Our lives unfold like a good novel—but our lives can only be as good as we are aware of our character development and story line.  If we don’t know or believe there is a design, will we see one?

If we aren’t aware of what we are working on becoming, then we might miss the significance of an event, situation or person in our lives.  We might miss a growth opportunity in the process.

If we aren’t aware of the story line that has developed over the years of our lives, can we really know how that story line can shift as we move forward into the rest of the story?

If you were to look back at one month out of your life—perhaps a very challenging time or a very positive time—and really dissect it for details, could you also see this beautiful design?   

I am in awe of the design appearing before me as I write my story, and it has been the most welcome pleasant surprise in the process so far!