Once Upon a Time: Discovering Our Forever After Story Read online

  We laughed until our sides hurt when Carole told the story of her “saved” cat. But when we talk about change, we need to remember that even though most changes are gradual and take a great deal of work, sometimes a catastrophic event can bring about change seemingly overnight.

  As I write my books, I never lose sight of the importance of character growth and change. Often the book starts out with characters far apart, sometimes because of misunderstanding, sometimes because of things that happened in the past, sometimes because of prejudice—preformed beliefs—and sometimes because of plain old stubbornness. My job as author is to take those characters through scene after scene, crisis after crisis that will slowly break down their walls and allow for the change that will facilitate a happy ending.

  We’re all hoping for those happy endings. What we don’t realize is that transformation is the prerequisite for any story.

  So, how does change happen?

  ELEMENTS OF CHANGE

  Instead of just talking about how change takes place with the characters I create, I want to flip over to your life story. I want to talk about how change happens for all of us. I know a lot about change because I’ve struggled with it in many areas of my own life—weight, time management, my relationships with people, my relationship with God, and many other areas as well. I’ve discovered that there are specific steps to change.

  Dissatisfaction

  The first step is the hardest. It’s realizing you are sick of the status quo. If the status quo is being overweight, you look in the mirror with total disgust. Or you try to pull on your skinny jeans and realize the word skinny could never be applied to that part of your anatomy. If your status quo is a spiritual dissatisfaction, you may feel totally lost. Hopeless. You sense there must be more to life than this day-to-day grind. If your problem is an addiction of one kind or another, you reach bottom and realize there’s no place left to go.

  If you were to use a twelve-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or Overeaters Anonymous, you’d discover that you must come to a point where you admit you are helpless to bring about these changes on your own. To effect lasting change, you need to call on God’s help. That is excellent advice. It’s probably the reason those programs are effective in so many lives.

  Vision for Change

  Dissatisfaction leads to a decision to make the next step—envisioning what the change will look like. When I first started to write, I decided to set a goal of finishing twenty manuscript pages each day. Then I calculated how long it would take for me to finish a book. This was good practice for what was to follow later, when I was offered a writing contract. Because I was already a disciplined writer, I knew I would be able to meet my deadlines.

  Many of my friends who’ve battled weight issues keep a dress they wore when they were at their optimal weight. They picture themselves wearing that dress again. And many of them eventually do fit back into that dress. Visualizing our goals is an important part of the process of change.

  A Workable Plan

  We need to develop a workable plan for change. Emphasis on workable. Step by step. Little by little. If I had set a goal of writing thirty manuscript pages a day when I first started writing, it simply would have been impossible. As it was, twenty pages a day challenged me. To set a goal of thirty pages a day would be setting myself up for failure. I would have grown discouraged and frustrated with myself, and I might have thrown in the towel and lost out on a wonderful career.

  It’s the same with weight loss. If losing weight was the change you were seeking and you set a goal of five pounds a week, you’d be setting yourself up for failure. One of my favorite weight-loss specialists is Carole Lewis, director of First Place 4 Health. She says, “We do not want our members to lose more than two pounds a week because it is physiologically impossible to lose more than two pounds of fat in that short a time.”

  Don’t forget that change needs to take place at a pace that will allow for the new behavior to become a permanent habit. Many self-help gurus say that it takes twenty-eight days for something to become a habit. I’m skeptical about setting an exact number of days, since we are all different, but I agree that when we practice the behavior of change over and over it becomes our new normal.

  Working the Plan

  It’s great to have a plan for transformation, but the rubber meets the road when it comes to working the plan. The term working the plan represents the tough part—it means implementing your intention. Let’s say you long to live in a clean, clutter-free home. The only problem is that you are a card-carrying messy person. You’ve developed a workable plan—you are going to tackle one room every Saturday until the house is organized and free of clutter. Excellent plan. The only problem is that Saturday comes along, the sun is shining, and it’s a perfect day to go yard sale road-tripping with friends. Do you work your plan or abandon it to go find more clutter? This is where the vision comes in. Which do you want more, the clean, organized house or a day of play? It comes down to how strong your dissatisfaction was in the first place.

  If you work the plan, the end result will be that wonderful feeling of accomplishment that comes from an organized, clean space. If you set aside the plan, you’ll end up feeling guilty and defeated.

  The truth is, implementing change takes discipline. I keep going back to that important step of admitting we are helpless on our own. We need to constantly pray for strength and resolve, for the determination to keep our needs in mind. One small decision will often lead to another. As a benefit, our decision-making muscles grow stronger with every positive action we take.

  Celebrating the Change

  But when change happens, we need to take time to celebrate. We live in such a busy world that we often just move from one challenge to the next without stopping to appreciate where we have been and to recognize where we are now. I’m a believer in celebrating, and I make time to do so, whether that means celebrating milestones like birthdays or Christmas or celebrating people. Acknowledging achievements is one of the best kinds of celebrations we can have. We aren’t necessarily patting ourselves on the back; we’re telling God how grateful we are for His help, for seeing us through. You can bet He’s celebrating with us. He’s a proud Father eager to tell each one of us, “Well done!”

  In the Old Testament, the people celebrated victories or times when God intervened by stopping to build an altar. For a nomadic people, erecting a tribute of stones was a significant act. I talk a little about altar building and how it applies to us on page 187.

  But when you’ve achieved change, or even have taken an important step toward your eventual goal, celebrate. Include your family and friends. You just might inspire them as well.

  AGENTS OF CHANGE

  Let’s go back to talking about transformation in literary characters. Not all characters in stories change. Sometimes a character is simply an agent of change. Someone pointed out that Anne of Green Gables is such a character. She doesn’t really change. She stays the same—wise beyond her years, prone to mishaps, an overachiever, and fiercely loyal—throughout a series of eight books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It is those around her who change. The same could be said about the children’s classic Pollyanna, by Eleanor Porter. The title character plays the “glad game,” and while she remains the same, others see life in a new light through the eyes of this little girl who views life as a positive.

  The wise old men and women in stories are also often agents of change. They dispense wisdom and enter into the characters’ lives as mentors but rarely change themselves. I think of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

  In real life, Jesus Christ was an agent of change. He came into the world without sin and left the world the same way. No change needed. But everyone He touched changed in one way or another. His disciples became far more than they ever dreamed of becoming. We’re talking about men like Simon Peter, who was nothing more than a fisherman trying to eke a living out of the sea. No education, no résumé, but he b
ecame a world changer, and our Church was built on him.

  Not many of us can be that agent of change as easily as any one of Jesus’s disciples, but I’m guessing you are an agent of change in some area of your life. If you are a parent, you are an agent of change to your children. If you are a teacher, you are changing lives every day—we need only think back on the teachers of our youth and the influence they had on our lives to understand how. If you are in ministry, you will be changing lives in the most profound way—for eternity.

  CHANGE TAKES TIME

  We already talked about the time it takes for a change to become permanent, but we need to recognize that some changes take time—a long time. I suffered a huge setback in my life when Dale died. I’m still grieving his loss. For me to say that I’ll give myself a year or two years to accept the change to our family structure would be ridiculous. I will forever mourn his loss and see his empty place at family functions and holiday dinners as I watch his sons grow into manhood.

  Any transformation takes time. I think of my friends who’ve been widowed. To lose a best friend and a life partner is a change that forever shapes their futures. Rather than chart a change that calls for you to “get on with your life,” it would make more sense to set realistic goals, like “Find one fun thing to do every Saturday,” or “Make a dinner date with friends every week.”

  I’m new to deep grief, and it’s still raw, but I’m guessing we never get over the loss, we just find new joys and develop our own workarounds to make life meaningful. I’ve buried both my parents, but their deaths were anticipated. One doesn’t ever expect to bury a child. This is new territory for Wayne and me, and a difficult road often filled with ruts and detours.

  When Wayne broke his arm, the doctor told us it would take six to eight weeks to heal. Grief is completely different. There is no set time when one can say, “Okay, it’s been long enough. I’m over that now. Time to move on.”

  CHARTING CHANGE

  We come around to my journals again. It is important to record our lives, and transformation is a part of that life experience. Make sure to record your journey to change. If your goal is weight loss, you’ll want to keep charts of the loss so you can easily look back on them and see where you started and how far you’ve come. It’s too easy to get impatient, so it is even more important to be able to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come.

  The thing to remember is this: change is often painful, and it can be excruciatingly slow, but without transformation, without change, there’s no way to get to the happy ending.

  Storytelling Prompt

  Looking back on your life, name some turning points. Finish the sentence, “If it hadn’t been for __________________, I never would have __________________.” What was your most profound life change? What brought it on? How did it change you?

  Ready for a Change

  We were created for change. There are 2.5 trillion red blood cells in a human body at any one moment. Because cells need to be replaced, 2.5 million new red blood cells need to be produced every second by the bone morrow. That’s like creating the population of Chicago every second. That’s a lot of change. Nothing stays the same. Our bodies begin to shrink at the age of thirty. And did you know that every month we grow a brand-new layer of skin? It reminds me of the David Bowie song, “Changes.”

  We are constantly changing in other ways as well—spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. The question is, do we change only in response to events that happen to us, or do we seek change on our own terms?

  You can use story techniques to chart your own transformation. Here are some steps:

  1. Think about what your “ordinary world” looks like.

  2. Decide how you would like it to be different.

  3. Write the story as you imagine it could be. Don’t buy into someone else’s story. It’s too easy to say, “I want to be rich, working in the perfect job, seeing each of my children grow up successful . . .” Dig deeper.

  4. Make sure you are writing the change you want to see in yourself. If you begin talking about changes for other people in your story, you’re going to be stymied.

  5. If you seek to transform into the kind of person God wants you to be, you need to listen for his voice. How do you hear that? By spending time silently with Him, Bible in hand; by studying what He had to say in His love letter to us—the Bible; by seeking the advice of your wise mentors.

  6. Chart the steps needed to become the character in the story you’ve written.

  7. Take the first step toward change.

  8. Journal the process. You’ll discover much more about yourself if you chronicle the process. Remember, the process is usually much more important than the outcome.

  Sixteen

  HAPPILY EVER AFTER . . .

  But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

  —ISAIAH 40:31

  Don’t we love those happy endings in books?

  Many writers, especially those who write literary fiction—that fiction where the writing style is almost more important than the story—prefer to write tragic endings. They’ll argue that it’s more realistic and that most people don’t get to experience many happy endings. But guess what? Those of us who write books with happy endings outsell the others by huge margins. My feeling is that the reader is making an emotional investment when they read one of my books. I owe them a story that will lift their spirits, remind them that there is goodness to life, and leave them with a sense of hope and joy.

  My readers aren’t alone. We all long for happy endings. The nice thing is that God plans a happy ending for us. We will all die eventually. That sounds final, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s just the beginning.

  Frederick Buechner tells us the “final secret” in his book Listening to Your Life. Here’s what he says: “And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love at last as from the first He has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us.”1

  We have a lot of wilderness to get through before we reach that Promised Land. These images come from the Old Testament story of Moses and the children of Israel. You remember the story, right? The Israelites were held captive, were slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. They spent their days under the thumb of the Egyptians, futilely trying to make bricks without the straw that was needed to bind the clay mixture. And they were building for the Egyptians, ever building. They longed for freedom.

  PLAGUES AND PESTILENCE

  God called a reluctant Moses to free his people. (God’s own reluctant hero!) Obtaining their freedom was not an easy task. It took plagues and pestilence and finally death to convince the pharaoh to let Moses lead his people to the Promised Land. Pharaoh grudgingly let them go, but after a short time revisited this decision. After all, he had just dispatched his entire workforce. By all reckoning, the total number of Israelites in the Exodus was probably close to two million. Others joined the Exodus as well, maybe even some Egyptians and other slaves. Pharaoh must have looked at the stacks of drying bricks and the partially completed granaries in the storehouse cities of Pithom and Ramses and changed his mind.

  MIRACLE AFTER MIRACLE

  Led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, these ex-slaves took a roundabout route to keep themselves safe from the threat of war with the much-feared Philistines.

  Pharaoh led an entire regiment to bring them back, six hundred of his best chariots, along with other chariots, with officers over all of them. A staggering, impressive force. As the thundering of the Egyptian forces announced their approach, the people camped along the banks of the Red Sea became afraid and berated Moses for bringing them out of Egypt.

  But God wasn’t done with miracles. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea as instructed by God, and the waters open
ed like a valley in the sea—it must have been a half-mile wide to accommodate two million people. And here’s something else I find impressive: they walked across on dry land. Can you imagine what it must have been like for them, looking at the walls of water on either side of their path?

  As the Egyptians followed, God threw their entire army into disarray. First the wheels began jamming or coming off their chariots, causing them to careen into one another. Then, as they entered the dry path in the Red Sea where the children of Israel had just passed, Moses once again obediently held up his arm, and the waters closed over the path, drowning the army of the pharaoh.

  GRUMBLING AND GROANING

  With all those miracles behind them you’d think the people would forever follow Moses and his God, Jehovah. But they were human, and as time passed and they wandered in the wilderness, they began grumbling and growing impatient. Believe it or not, they began to yearn for Egypt, the very place of their enslavement. They remembered the rich foods they’d often had and compared those to the manna and quail God provided for them now. They yearned for the variety of Egyptian fare, even if it came with cruel enslavement. (Food issues are obviously not a new phenomenon.)

  And when they reached the very border of the Promised Land, scouts were sent to give a report. They reported back that the land was good indeed—flowing with milk and honey. But they also reported that the land was populated with giants, men who made them look like grasshoppers. Joshua and Caleb countered this report, reminding the people that if God promised the land, they had nothing to fear.