Starting from the Middle...

I've been intending to start a blog for a while but I just never could figure out how to start.  It seems like some kind of introduction is necessary, but I just can't seem to find the right words to begin.  Beginning has always been a problem for me.  In all honesty, most of my sermons and papers and articles start with a good story for the middle and then somewhere in the course of writing I discover the beginning.  Even back in high school when we had to turn in outlines before we even began writing papers, I would always flesh out the middle of the paper and just write "Introduction" for the first paragraph.


When you really think about it, our own lives begin in the middle.  Or at least our awareness of them.  How many people actually remember their births, or their conception (God forbid!) or even their first day of school? No one I know.  We somehow just slowly become aware that we are individuals, parts of families, members of churches and clubs.  We rely on our parents or our families to fill in the beginnings for us.  We all crave stories about what we were like as babies, what our first words were and why we are afraid of thunder.  Those around us not only shape us daily by our interaction with them, they also supply the foundational mythology of who we were.  They write our story, in a sense.  The other day I was having lunch with my mother and as I was organizing my food, she said "You always were a picky eater." She went on to tell story after story of my eating pickily.  In hearing those stories I became a picky eater.  Or, more accurately, in hearing those stories I became aware of myself as a picky eater.  There was a moment when I felt lost, as though I had no idea who I was anymore.  But in accepting the stories as true I became both more defined as a person and more liberated, able to choose if I wanted to continue to create stories about my picky eating or become something else.


Living life as a Christian is like that too--both liberating and defining.  The Christian story is another one that begins in the middle for each of us.  It's Christ's story, and He is both the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.  We become aware that we are a part of that story (either slowly or suddenly) and we are defined as members of the body of Christ, called and chosen.  We become aware, and we are liberated, empowered and emboldened.  We rely on the chorus of witnesses, the Bible and other Christians, to share THE STORY--Christ's story--and also THEIR story, their experience with the risen Lord.  Our spiritual mothers and fathers--be they Miriam, or Paul, or our beloved Sunday school teachers--tell us the stories of Jesus and teach us to be a part of God's story.  Sometimes, we hear something that shakes our self understanding to the core, and we are challenged to reconsider how we have been living.  Sometimes we are overcome by the amazing love that God gives us.   For me, being a Christian means letting God write my story.  Who could ask for a better author?


Evermore and evermore,


Mary-Lynn