Five Minute Friday: Story -

From Lisa-Jo Baker, the Gypsy Mama"On Fridays around these parts we like to write. Not for comments or traffic or anyone else's agenda. But for fun, for practice, for joy at the sound of syllables, sentences and paragraphs all strung together by the voice of the speaker. We love to just write without worrying if it's just right or not. 
For five minutes flat."

Today's prompt: Story. 

~ Go. ~ 

Sometimes people talk about it in hushed whispers, like they really want to discuss it but don't really want to be overheard. It could be thought morbid or weird or just not the best topic for the moment. I've never been that way. I am just fine walking through cemeteries, even though my heart clenches often in pain. It isn't the way they are all laid out in neat rows or the way that life moves so fast and then stops so soon. It is the knowing that here lie so many people who have families that loved them so. 

It is the way the wind moves through the Spanish moss and makes it look like a dance. It is the way the rain washes the dirt from the grooves and it is the way you brush the grass from the stone. 

But talking about it seems so real, so right. Because they aren't there, they do not lie 6 feet down. They are in another Country, our beloved, a better Home. 

Those stones hold memories, quotes, Scripture....and we wonder "What will ours say? What do we want on ours?", and we joke about it occasionally, but even the thought brings tears sometimes. 

Because we want our stories to be remembered well. 

Like that time we all snuck off after church and went hobo-hunting in the backwoods of the church and then the parents all yelled for us to get back here and now.... except that wasn't just one time, it was almost every Sunday because we were exceptionally adventurous kids. 

And we want people to know that we loved our families, we loved kids, we loved the ocean. We want people to know, years and years down the road...that life was a beautiful thing. That we were continually breathed into by a holy God, whispering LIFE into us every day, by physical means and by the written Word, and by the spoken hush of His voice. 

and we want so much to matter, and we want so much to be known 

but in the end, it isn't a story on the gravestone that will mark centuries at all....it will be the exultant crowds laughing and crying because "Same thing with me!" The Lord saved me and loved me too!" and stories will be told for generations and generations on in the New Heavens and New Earth. 

Our stories do not die with us. They live on in us, as we live more FULLY on from the day we "die" here. 

~ Stop ~  


Comments

  1. I'm visiting from FMF, and your profile captured me at first (can't help it I'm a photographer so I love and interesting profile picture)... but your words are beautiful. I like roaming graveyards for the very same reason you do. I wonder about their stories... this line says it all....but in the end, it isn't a story on the gravestone that will mark centuries at all....it will be the exultant crowds laughing and crying because "Same thing with me!"

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  2. Such a beautiful post! Our stories will live on even after we leave this earth. Visiting from the FMF!

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  3. Oh, this is just beautiful. You write so fluidly, like water in a gentle stream. I so enjoyed this post ... thank you for using your gift to be a blessing! Your words about the cemetery were very thought-provoking ... I recently reflected on grief as well, but these insights gave my thinking a different slant. Thank you!

    http://reflectiontherapy.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/a-open-letter-to-grief/

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  4. Beautiful, my dear.

    xx

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  5. This is beautiful, Jean. Reminds me back when I was growing up with my church friends as well. :) Beautifully captured!

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