A Story Within A Story

Everyone has a story. Your life is the story you’ve lived. But there’s more going on in your story than you may recognize. There are three stories fighting for space in your life. You have the story you’ve lived, the story you tell yourself and the story God’s designed for you. God’s story has the story you’ve lived already factored into His story. But what about the story in your head competing for story space?

You have been affected for better or worse by the story you have lived. But the story you tell yourself affects the story you’ve lived and may be limiting how well you live the story God has written for you. I feel no need to delve into your past right now; God is the healer of our pasts. My question for you is this: what is the story you tell yourself? What do you say about you? What do you say about your life? What is it you believe about the reality of your life?

Here’s a simplistic example. For a significant period of time I was unusually tired. I repeatedly said to myself and others, “I am so tired.” One day I began to wonder what would happen if I just stopped telling myself, “I am so tired.” Would I be so tired? You guessed it. Over time I was not so tired. I was tired at times but not day in and day out. Telling myself and others over and over how tired I was made it more real and it became my story.

In our over-stimulating, social media driven world many of us are telling ourselves we don’t measure up. Measuring up involves updated decorations, a new house, a successful book, a million likes (OK that may be an exaggeration), trips around the world, or anything, big or small, that’s different (and presumably better) than the life we have right now.

The stories most of us tell ourselves are false narratives and some of us are telling ourselves detrimental stories. Do you find your false narrative in the following lies?

• I can’t celebrate Christmas without drinking. Everybody is drinking and having fun. I won’t have fun if I don’t drink.
• I am such a loser; my family has problems. All my friends on social media are so happy. They do things together all the time. I am too busy surviving work and managing home to make time for fun.
• I cannot thrive in this job. Nobody talks to me. The boss expects perfection and I will never be able to get it right.
• Life is just too much for me. I am not wired to handle raising kids, running a house, and going back to school. I just don’t have the stamina some people do.
• I don’t have any choices in my life. I always have to take care of everyone in my life and no one is every happy with me. I don’t even know who I am anymore.
• I have to be the best, nothing else will do.

Recognize yourself in any of these? When I think of these false narratives, as well as the ones I tell myself, there are a few threads (in my husband's words) of stinkin’ thinkin’ woven throughout each. These stories rattle around in our brains convincing us we are helpless and other people have it all figured out. We become victims of our thinking while we think we are victims of life.

These false narrative statements are full of never, can’t, everybody, all, nobody, I am not, I have not, I must, etc. I want to leave you with a challenge to pay attention to the stories you tell yourself. Write down what you have come to believe about yourself, God, and others as a result of what you tell yourself about you and your life. Next time we will begin challenging these types of stories with the truth – God’s story for you.

While paying more attention to your thinking, mull over these words written by Jacques Philippe in his book, Interior Freedom.

“One of the most essential conditions for God’s grace to act in our lives is saying yes to what we are and to the situations in which we find ourselves. That is because God is ‘realistic.’ His grace does not operate on our imaginings, ideals, or dreams. It works on reality, the specific, concrete elements of our lives.”