Mission Story {40 of 40 Stories}


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I’m not sure how I missed a story during Lent – I was surprised when I realized one was missing early last week. I didn’t know it was skipped. Maybe I should just leave it missing, because then 40 Stories doesn’t have to end. It’s not missing, though. It’s right here. Tonight I write Number 40. 
The end that is actually a beginning.
I’m beginning to think in wisps around ideas of adoption and faith. There are voices that have returned, leaving threads of ideas for me to tug. These are the voices that demand I write write write. These are the voices I hear when I write fiction, characters arguing and demanding and insisting – the voices of the story world.
This time it isn’t fiction. It is real life. It is still a story world. 
And it is waiting for me.
Here I am, holding out a feeble offering of story only to get it handed back to me. I’ve been giving 40 Stories this Lenten season, and I find out how I can’t out-give God. 
There is a story world waiting for me. The discipline of 40 Stories was practice and training ground for the next writing project. It is faith and action coming together, tailored just for me.
It is written in James 2
Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.
I feel so…loved. I didn’t know this was what would happen until I was in the middle of this story. Number 40 and God gives back to me more than I can fathom.
I get to write and find my way through a real live story world as a means of putting my faith in action. God is good to me.

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