Well, a lot has happened since my last post. Most notably perhaps, Emily left for college. I am still pretty mad at her about that since she promised me when she was four that she would not grow up too fast. She lied. It took all of about ten minutes. We all really do miss her around here, and Lily is no exception. She picks up pictures of Emily and hugs them. When Emily "skypes' with us on the computer, Lily jumps up and down with excitement and kisses the screen. Needless to say, Emily coming home for Fall Break was a BIG celebration around here.
OK, so what does all that have to do with the blog title, "What's Your Story"? Nothing. So I'll get to it.
Christian author Donald Miller's latest book
A Million Miles in A Thousand Years is a must read for all Christians. Especially if you are willing to have your toes stepped on a little bit. In the book, he explores how the concepts of
writing a good story also apply when it comes to
living a good story—living a beautiful, meaningful, fulfilling life. He makes the assertion that essentially we have been brainwashed by lifelong exposure to marketing and advertising campaigns. Campaigns that convince us that we must have certain
things to be truly happy and that if we don't have the biggest house and drive the most expensive cars and on and on and on, we will never be fulfilled. Miller contends our personal life stories have been watered down and made silly and boring and stupid because we had fallen hard into the consumerism trap. Recently, my daughter Blair who works for Dave Ramsey in Nashville interviewed Donald Miller about the book. Don explained, “If you went to a movie about a guy who just tried to buy stuff all his life, at no point would you think that movie was rich, meaningful, beautiful or inspiring. And so if it wouldn’t work in a movie, it’s not going to work in your life."
I think the devil must get a huge kick of it. Especially that Christians have bitten the apple so hard. Financial resources that could so easily have been used to do God's work have been diverted for our pleasure. Makes me kind of sick that think of all the money I have wasted that could have been more wisely spent.
I am thinking we should all take a long look at how we use the resources that have been entrusted to us. We need to consider our life story so far and make a decision to make the next chapters more compelling, significant and outwardly focused. So for Susan and I, that is our plan. We want to sell our house, size wayyyyyy down and focus on the people scripture refers to as "the least of these".
God has really used this adoption thing to get a hold of me and I am praying He will get a hold of all of us and shake us up a little to get us more focused on His purposes, not our own.
As for Lily, my little princess is FANTASTIC. We are having the time of our lives, albeit pretty exhausting for an old man like me. Below are pictures of our search for Lily's Halloween/Fall Festival costume, (depending on what your view of Oct. 31rst is). She LOVED one of them and HATED one of them. The pictures make her feelings very clear. So, I think we are going to repackage Tinkerbell for her friend Millie's birthday! "Only worn once for 10 seconds by another little Chinese girl who hated it."
Thanks again for following along with us. New blog shortly!
Chip
