While I was on vacation a lovely woman handed me a book she had just read, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years –How I  Learned To Live a Better Story,” by Donald Miller.

Once in a blue moon, people will say “Tell me Your Story”, and when it happens I feel so honored and loved. But it hardly ever happens. I can only think of a dear friend and my husband and many therapists!   Donald Miller’s story is his own — an overweight man, in his early thirties , who has just finished writing his memoir.  This was a success, but like experiencing any big moment in one’s life, that high comes down and he was depressed  and stuck.   He is approached by two filmmakers about making a movie based on his memoir. Donald realizes his life story should be more about “the way he should live his life” as opposed to the wild crazy life he’s led to that point, that he has the opportunity to create a different life that includes experience, faith, courage and love.

He learns through many life changing events what is going to make his story. He needed to get off his ass and get away from his comfort zone and see what life can offer. The basic structure of most stories is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.  Miller begins by working in a soup kitchen, which I have often thought about. Here is just one of his quotes that melts my heart: “If I have a  hope, it’s that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.”

He then focuses on the sad fact that he has not seen his father since his mother and dad divorced over thirty years ago. He opens up to his mom and shares with her how he wants to see his dad, and she is able to obtain where he is living and his phone number. Don shows up at his father’s door step, putting all fear aside, and confronts his dad. The outcome was so beautiful, his father apologizes and looks Don in the eye and tells him he loves him.

Here is another example of a story.  Don is hot after this gal, she wants to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, which is 14,000 feet. Don hires a trainer and guess what, he does the entire hike, with the girl and a group of friends.

In another episode, Don has started the Mentoring Project, which is a program for children from fatherless homes.  That light bulb went on and he realized that in order to have a story, he needed to take risks and go experience life.  Spirituality is an interesting part of Don’s world,  He is a believer in God, and sees God in his challenges and in a beautiful sunset.

One of his quotes is”I like those scenes in the bible where God stops people and asks them to build an altar.I think God wanted his people to build altars for their sake, something that would help them remember the time when they were rescued or they were given grace”.

Most of us are just fine with sitting in our own little worlds, and take careful steps. Do we want to go out of our comfort zones? I honestly think from the age of 5, I was out of my comfort zone. At that age, I released the parking brake on my mom’s friend’s car, jumped out and was almost crushed by the tire that tore my ear off. Later, I was shipped off to boarding school, watched both of my parents die from cancer, endured my father hiring a private detective to snoop on me, and survived a divorce. And I met the man of my dreams. Believe me I have learned alot from my life and will continue to. God has a plan, and I am just blessed to be a part of it.

When I return home, I am going to sign up at the soup kitchen.