Life in Narrative

I used to think my life was structured like a novel. There would be a static cast of characters, a generally sequential order of events, and a quirky protagonist who gradually learned to embrace life. The novel was naturally about me, with everything that happened in and around me serving to develop my character and push her on towards her end goal, a life that was well-lived and fulfilling. A satisfying end for any reader. 

Which would be fine if life were anything like a novel. But real life is unedited. We don’t always know in the moment what or who will end up being important. Sometimes things sneak up on us. Sometimes a passing acquaintance becomes significant and sometimes people who seemed significant were just making a cameo appearance. Sometimes the plot twist never arrives or the moral gets lost in too much dialogue. Sometimes the ending is anything but satisfying. 

I was thinking today about Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith. I tend to personalize that and take comfort in the idea that He has already written my story and knows how it will end. Which is true, but it’s not the whole picture. 

Jesus is not just the author of my life, He’s also the editor who pulls together the billions of threads that make up the narrative of our common faith. He’s not throwing together a compilation of disconnected short stories, He's creating one perfectly complete story. It’s been the same story being written since day one. Eve’s story and David’s story and Mary’s story and my story– they are inseparable from Christ’s story. Which is the only story worth telling. 

That means the people I interact with every day are not supporting characters for my own drama, they are each a part of the one drama that spans through time and space and dimensions and galaxies. Each of their stories as vibrant and beautiful as the next. Every one of them essential to the narrative. 

So I’ve started to think of my life less like a self-contained story and more like the dot on a single i in the 1,000,000 volume narrative of the universe. In some ways my time on earth is infinitely inconsequential, but then without the contribution of my tiny life this cosmic narrative would be incomplete.

And when I think about it, that’s a much more beautiful thought than a novel that’s all about me.