your epic

DONALD MILLER! the sweetest name right now. Donald Miller reinstates my belief in sane people being able to believe in God. my God.

How silly my rants and raves and trials through religion seem when I read his words. How much wasted time on doctrine and selfishness, when I could be claiming life.. real life. So much self inflicted hurt and hurting others because I did not know who I truly am. Because I didn't see how wonderful and life-filling the bottom line was.

"You get the feeling when you look back on life that that's all God really wants from us, to live inside a body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through experience."

In his book, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years", Donald Miller thinks on his own life, as his memoirs: "Blue LIke Jazz" is about to be made into a movie. As they are writing the script, the director of the film explains to Donald that movies can't be like the background noise of the everyday life, they have to contain struggles and conflicts that the hero must champion.

Donald is forced to look over his life and recount his struggles, his failures, and successes. In a story they are all of equal importance and value because they weave the story of a person of value .. of infinite value to God. God doesn't want robot-perfect followers, but people of heart, people who slip and fall, people who are real.

"Somehow we realize that the great stories are told in conflict but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather he is a master storyteller."

"The thing about death is it reminds you the story we are telling has finality. My uncle's funeral was beautiful. I flew down to join the family, and while people were certainly sad, there was also a sense we were burying a good man, which feels different than burying an average man.

My uncle's life was celebrated at his funeral. We sang the hymns he loved to sing, and people told stories. His sister, my aunt, stood up and said when my uncle and his family were living in Michigan, he took her out snowshoeing one night. My aunt said the new-fallen snow glowed against the moonlight as though the earth were talking to the sky. At one point, she said, after crossing through some woods, my uncle lifted his hands towards God and recited the verses from the Bible that say, 'When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him?'"

.:..:..:.

" heard a lot of playwrights used to end their stories with a funeral if it was a tragedy and a wedding if it was a comedy, I think that's why we make such a big deal our of weddings, because a wedding means life, and because the bride and groom are old enough to write a thank-you note for the serving spoons you gave them. And perhaps because you get to drink and dance, no matter how old you are. I only dance at weddings. I practically only drink at weddings, too, mostly because that's where I do my dancing. One of the things that gives me hope is that, even with all the tragedy that happens in the world, the Bible says that when we get to heaven, there will be a wedding and there will be drinking and there will be dancing.."

((all quotes from Donald Miller's book, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". I highly recommend.))

01 The Sun is Setting Sweetly on the Century by Aaron Roche by sahalemarja