The Story and the Struggle

What if your life were a book? Would you want to read it?  That was a partial premise of a book I recently finished. It proposed that the things that make stories meaningful are the same sorts of things that make lives meaningful, and if those elements are lacking in your life, you should rethink some of your scenes.  It also talked about how in movies and stories you have conflict and resolution and you have a character who by the end of the story has either revealed who they really are or have been transformed by the conflict into someone new.  The author states that these things resonate with us because that is true of life. 

In life we have conflict and are longing for resolution.  And throughout our lives we are either being revealed for what we really are, or are being transformed by our conflicts, for good or bad.   The book made me re think in some ways the way I view struggle.  None of us like to struggle.  We like comfort. We like things to be easy.  But what if living a comfortable, easy life implies that you never do anything that really matters? Is that a worthwhile trade off?

While as humans we hate struggle, in some ways we also relish it.  That's why we have athletes.  I doubt any athlete "enjoys" the pain of training.  But you bet they enjoy the victories that training brings.  Climbing mountains is painful, but the struggle makes the view that much more beautiful.  It seems in many ways enduring pain can often magnifiy beauty and wonder when we come out on the other side of it.  Someone who hikes up a mountain certainly experiences the view in a different way then the one who drove.

Often suffering seems meaningless and we wonder why God allows it.  And although I believe the answer to that is involved, I wonder if one of the reasons is because God knows that when we finally come out on the other side, when we leave this life behind us, that the splendor of heaven will be a million times what it would have been because we reached it through suffering.  And maybe some of the people who suffer the most in this life will be the ones who will enjoy the next the most? And who can cross the finish line with pride who didn't fight to finish the race?

Of course, if this life is all there is then that is a false hope.  But I don't believe it is.  The eternity in my heart whispers that we are part of a greater Story.  And I believe that all of our struggle in this present time will someday make all of this the greatest story ever told.