Story trumps all.
At least, it does for me.
I come from a long line of readers. My Pa loved Zane Grey. My Granny – well, Granny’s den could pass for a Christian bookstore. She reads all the time. My parents and sister are avid readers. Reading is in my blood.

My mother claims that even as a very young child, I loved books (as you can see from the photo – yep, that’s me). She says she would hand me a book (no pictures) upside down and I would automatically turn it right-side up. She says I did it every time. I couldn’t wait to go to kindergarten because I had been told I would learn to read.

As a fifteen year old who had just snagged my learner’s permit, my mother had to ban me from taking books in the car for several months when she realized I had no idea how to get around town. How would I? I never went anywhere without a book.

My reading tastes are eclectic. I read fiction (christian and secular), nonfiction, children’s literature and the classics. I read historicals, chick-lit, fantasy, sci-fi, romance and suspense. I draw the line at horror — I read for pleasure, not to have myself so freaked out that I’m afraid of my own shadow at noon.

I love Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolkien and Austen but I also love Rowling, Meyer, Clancy and Flynn.

I love books that are deemed to be the greatest of all time and also those that are scorned by the writing establishment.

(Side note: I have no idea who the writing establishment people are. I’m just working off the assumption that they exist.)

I’ve noticed that the more popular a writer is, the more people seem to feel it necessary to make comments like “I don’t know how they’ve sold so many books . . . the writing is terrible.”

To which I say . . . Duh!

(I know – I know. My grasp of the English language is astounding at times!)

Do they really not know? Are they so pleased with their own knowledge that they can’t see the obvious?

It’s simple. Some people know how to tell a great story. Period.

They might not be the world’s greatest craftsmen of the English language, violating all the “rules” on every single page. The writing may be substandard, or even truly terrible. It may be that someone else could have written the story better. And this annoys some.

And sometimes it annoys me, because I’ve learned a lot about writing in the past eight months. I can discuss point of view, plot structure, genre and word count. I can have a reasonably articulate discussion that includes phrases like “injudicious use of adverbs” and “poor choice of sentence attributions” – phrases that meant nothing to me when I sat down and started writing a novel fifteen months ago.

Because of this new knowledge, I notice the mistakes now. I see the POV errors, the poor sentence structure, the “looseness” of the writing.

Guess what?

If the STORY has captured me . . . I DON’T CARE!

To make matters worse, if the story has captured me, I will go back to that world again . . . and again . . . and again. Drives my husband nuts. He’ll see me curled up with a book and say “Are you reading that – again?”

To which I will reply, “Yes” and get back into the story. He rolls his eyes and wanders off wondering about the loon he married. The nutcase who can’t seem to stay away from Narnia, Middle Earth, Hogwarts or Forks. The one who wants to visit Prince Edward Island because of Anne of Green Gables. The one who has rarely left the Southeast but has traveled this world and quite a few others while perched in her “reading spot” in the tree of her childhood yard, or curled up in the recliner while pretending she can’t hear Barney for the hundredth time.

I love a good story.

And the craziest thing of all is that I’m living in a story. Me. Right now.

God, the greatest storyteller of all time has written a story for me. Well, He’s written His story and I am a minor character in the plot. And like every truly good storyteller, He has no unnecessary characters – plenty of misbehaving characters, but no unnecessary characters.

Tune in next time as we continue to explore the idea of Living Into God’s Story.


And hey – leave me a comment. Tell me if it’s the same for you. Is it the story that grabs you or do you need a finely crafted sentence to go along with it? Do you read a book once and never return to that world or do you enjoy a repeat journey? If there’s a story that captures you time and time again, tell me. I’d love to read it!

I come from a long line of storytellers.

My great-grandfather on my dad’s side of the family, Pa Everett (shown here with my great-grandmother, my Pa, my dad, and a very small me) knew how to tell a story. I have no idea how much formal education he had. He was a stonemason and a good one. But he is most remembered for his stories. I can remember sitting on the porch of his home on a summer evening, surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins (we have a big family) and listening to him recount some event from his past. I remember some of my aunts talking about trying to write down some of his stories and the general consensus was that it wouldn’t work. The story wasn’t as good when written. Even if you wrote it word for word, it would lose it’s magic. There was just something about the way he told it.

My father is a storyteller in the tradition of Christ.

Just as Jesus used stories to drive home truth, my dad uses stories to illustrate God’s principles and how they work in real life. As his daughter, I have frequently been the subject of his stories! Growing up, there were times when something would happen and we would look at dad and say “This better not end up in a sermon.” But people relate to stories. And they are also more receptive to accepting a hard truth when they’ve been laughing for five minutes first. My dad doesn’t pull any punches. He speaks the Truth. But he tells it in a way that makes you want to hear it. And hear more of it. It’s a gift. And a calling. And he’s amazing.

My aunts and uncles are funny and great at telling tales, but as far as I’m concerned, my sister currently wears the mantle of best storyteller.

Family dinners with me and my parents are calm, interesting, and normal. When Jennifer’s there, look out. You’re likely to spew your tea or choke on your spaghetti. Laughter is guaranteed. Much like my great-grandfather, her timing is superb. And she knows how to nail the punchline. The bottom line – any family gathering is just more fun when she’s there. She knows how to liven up the party.

So you can imagine my total shock and amazement when I realized (at 35) that I might have gotten some of the storytelling gene. Mine mutated a bit though. I’m not so great with the oral story. I flub it up and it’s never as funny. I’ll always defer to Jennifer to recount an event. Her version will be much better. But writing down a story . . . that’s different. Maybe because I have time to work with it, to tweak it. I’m not sure. It’s still a new idea to me.

So in the next several posts, I’m going to be exploring the idea of storytelling in both fiction and the real world. Because here’s a thought for you to ponder (while you wait anxiously for my next post!).

God is the ultimate storyteller.

And we are the characters in His story.

Twenty years ago today, I turned 16.

I remember the day clearly for several reasons.

My family threw me a surprise party and . . .

I caught my hair on fire when I blew out the candles!

Really.

What can I say? It was 1990. I used a lot of hairspray.

I’ve been thinking about my 16-year old self lately. She didn’t know how easy she had it. She had a pretty good idea of how her life was going to go. She was going to go to college, fall in love, get married, have kids, maybe cure the world of cancer in her spare time . . . you know, all the important stuff.

And she did all that (except the cure for cancer). But strangely, she never anticipated the challenges along the way. And thank heaven she didn’t. If 16-year old Lynn had known the plot line of the next 20 years, she would have been paralyzed by fear. She wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the many happy times because she would have been dreading the tough times.

While I pondered all this, smug and superior as I remembered my naivete, a new thought struck.

What will 56-year old Lynn think of 36-year old Lynn? Will she remember the day she turned 36? How she took Emma to a new dentist and had lunch with her sister? Will she remember the way life was back in 2010 and shake her head and wish things were as easy as they were then? Will she be glad that 36-year old Lynn had no idea what was heading her way?

That kind of thinking could get depressing. Except for one thing.

Grace.

Tom Hayes, an evangelist that I’ve known my entire life (he and my dad were roommates in college), wrote a song called New Grace. The chorus goes like this . . .

Grace not yet discovered
Grace not yet uncovered
Grace from His bountiful store
Grace to cross the river
Grace to face forever
There’ll be new grace I’ve not needed before.

God’s grace has been sufficient through every trial and challenge. And it will continue to be. No matter what comes my way there will be grace that I have not yet discovered and it will be bountiful and abundant and it will be exactly what I need, when I need it.

I have no idea how 56-year old Lynn’s life will look and I don’t need to know.

I put my trust in the One who does know.

The one whose grace is enough.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Are you laughing?

Thinking – “yeah, like we needed more proof”?

Well, it’s true. I am weird. I accept this about myself.

But every now and then, something happens to confirm my weirdness.

I understand some of it better than I did before. While at Blue Ridge, the amazing Vonda Skelton shared with us last Monday night that writers are a weird bunch. She was so funny. And she made the point that one of the things that makes us weird is that we see terrible situations as plot material. I thought it was hilarious, but couldn’t think of a specific time when it had happened to me.

It happened one week later. 

Picture it . . . a mom who has showered, done her hair & makeup and is dressed in matching clothes, with her two adorable children, calmly and sweetly climbing into the mini-van for the morning trek to school, all with smiles and singing a hymn.

Um. Yeah. So if that’s how it goes at your house, more power to you.

Here’s how it played out at mine.

James is strapped into his car seat. He is dressed in play clothes, but only because he spilled applesauce all over his pajamas. I am in a t-shirt and a pair of pants that I wore when I painted the bathroom a few weeks ago. There’s a lot of paint on the pants. I have NOT had a shower. In fact, I may not have brushed my teeth.

I’m saying “Emma Kalyn Blackburn – GET IN THE CAR.” This line is repeated ad naseam for the next five minutes.

Now, you might ask, why didn’t you just put her in the car?

Because . . .

I couldn’t find my keys.

I’m wandering around the house, I’m asking James if he’s had them (he has a reputation), I’m calling Brian to see if it is possible that he managed to leave the house with both sets of keys.

They were in the diaper bag.

It’s around this time that I see the note reminding me that today is FIELD DAY and the kids are supposed to wear their class t-shirts and have a complete change of clothes because they will be getting wet.

There is no time for this. Emma goes to school in the clothes she already had on. I go grab a change of clothes and a towel and stuff them in her bag.

And, we’re off. Miraculously, only five minutes later than usual.

Until we get behind the most annoying driver on the planet.

Now I ask you, how many people are out and about for the sheer joy of it at 7:30 in the morning?

NOBODY.

People are on their way to work or school. Or maybe to get coffee. But 99.9999% of the people driving around at 7:30AM are in a hurry.

I, however, got behind the 0.0001% of the population who was not.

(Like the math there? I’m sure my parents are thrilled to see my engineering degree paying off!)

The next several minutes were torture. This person consistently drove, not at the speed limit, but five to ten miles BELOW.

I’m in a hurry here. I can’t imagine how it is possible for this person not to know this!

The moment that almost sent me hurtling into the abyss (I’d been over the edge for 15 minutes already) was when this lovely person SLOWED DOWN and almost came to a complete stop.

At a GREEN light. GREEN.

Did I mention it was GREEN?

I began to explain the situation to my precious children . . .

OK. I began to rant at the driver (oh, come on – you do it too) and at some point in my rant said “You just can’t make this stuff up”!

And it hit me.

I can’t make this up. But this is absolutely the perfect thing to torture my hero with on the very day he has to go to work with the heroine. He’s tired, cranky, snapping at his precious daughter, dreading going to the office and then he gets behind that one in a million driver who is out for a joyride at 7:30 AM.

Fabulous!

I’ve almost got the whole scene plotted out in my head.

What? You’ve never been stuck behind a slow poke and used the experience to torture the hero in the story you have mostly in your head?

Like I said.

Further proof that I am weird.

Don’t worry. I’m not confused.

I know the conference ended Thursday.

Technically.

But I think it may take a few weeks to get back to normal.

My husband and children were so glad to have me home. They had flowers and a plan for supper that did not include cooking! I so appreciate their – OK, Brian’s – sensitivity and understanding that I was worn out. And he knows when I’m exhausted, taking supper off my hands is guaranteed to make me happy!

I got home, got unpacked, played with my little ones, watched TV with Brian and went to bed earlier than I have in a week.

But now it’s Friday.

This may not make sense to anyone who wasn’t at Blue Ridge, but I feel weird.

Not, I’m a writer so I’m weird. I feel that way all the time.

More, I’m a writer. Holy cow. Now, how do I make that work into my life? And what should I do first? Should I work on my plot skeleton for my next book? And I want to type up all my notes so I can firmly plant them into my brain.

But wait, I’ve got to tweak the beginning of my manuscript and get it sent out. Pronto.

I also need to clean the bathrooms.

Ugh.

I hate cleaning bathrooms.

I was warned that post-conference depression is normal.

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed. But I can feel myself coming off the conference “high” and I’m not sure the return to reality is going to be a totally smooth transition.

It’s only taken me several hundred words to figure out the one word I need to describe how I feel.

Overwhelmed.

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path. Psalm 142:3 (NASB)

What a day.

Even as I type this, I’m not sure if I can adequately describe it.

I’ve been a little frustrated with myself this week. I’m having a great time, meeting people, learning tons, networking, discovering that while I am every bit as weird as I had suspected, so are a lot of other people!

But for some reason, God has felt distant. Or I’ve felt distant. Or something.

The worship here has been great, but I haven’t felt the way I frequently do during worship. I’m a crier and I haven’t even come close to shedding a tear.

I’ve been praying, soaking up the messages, but still, something was missing.

Until this morning.

I was getting ready and I could feel the tension increasing as my neck and shoulders were tightening up. And I hadn’t even made it to breakfast yet.

I never did.

I opened my Bible, still a bit frustrated with my apparent inability to “feel” close to my Abba during this oh-so-important week, and I said, out loud, “I wish I could just find this Psalm”. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks but over the past couple of days, I could not remember where it was. I wasn’t even 100% sure it was a Psalm. It might have been a Proverb.

I opened my Bible at random, into the Psalms. And just started reading. And then, some underlined verses on the right hand side caught my eye.

Psalm 138:8-The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

The elusive Psalm. Right there. Opened to at “random”.

I’ll spare you the details of the next fifteen minutes. But my Abba & I had such a sweet time together this morning.

There was a lot of crying (which is why I didn’t go to breakfast).

But there is also so much peace.

I’ve been so hesitant to say that “I am a Writer” and even more hesitant to say that I have been “called” to write. It seemed . . . presumptuous? bizarre? impossible?

Uh-oh. I’m about to start crying again.

Because I am.

I am a writer.

I am called to write.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ever be published. As I heard from DiAnn Mills this afternoon, God’s calling to write does not come with a publication contract!

But that’s OK. I don’t write for publication or for my fame or for people to be impressed by me.

I write for Him.

I write to spread His fame.

I write so people will be blown away by how awesome He is.

I write.

And He will fulfill His purpose for me.

Random things I am loving about my conference experience.

My room has no TV.

So far I’ve eaten meals with Steven James, Angela Hunt, Deb Raney, Vonda Skelton, and Karen Schurrer (an editor).

My room has a radio that came equipped to play music from my mp3 player.

The coffee shop here serves Starbucks.

The vending machine on my floor takes credit cards.

I’ve known at least one person in every class I’ve attended.

The worship time is phenomenal.

Everyone is friendly and supportive.

The food has been great – far better than I expected in a cafeteria setting.

If you happen to find yourself walking beside faculty members, they talk to you. As if they are just normal people and not bestselling authors :-).

My room has wireless access so I can type this in my pajamas.

Good night!

Wow!

I have had an awesome day.

I managed to get appointments scheduled with all the agents here, so if nothing else, I’ll get lots of practice making my pitch.

I’m taking a continuing class taught by Angela Hunt – which means I get to absorb about 6 hours of writing instruction from a master. She’s fabulous. She also gave us homework.

I had lunch with the editor here representing Bethany House and now I can send in a proposal (you can’t do this unless they request it – well, you could, but they won’t read it).

Then I had my critique. And walked out on a cloud! DiAnn Mills is no slouch in the writing world. She’s won tons of awards and she judges contests and she’s a mentor with the Christian Writer’s Guild. And she thinks my book has serious potential.

Picture me – goofy grin – trying to be all cool as I realize she’s not going to tell me to go home and delete all my files. 

Granted, if I do everything she suggested it will mean a major-league re-write. But no one ever said this was going to be easy. And, given that I just started writing 14 months ago, I think it is fairly fabulous!

I’m having a great time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me . . . I need to do my homework!

So. I’m here.

I met some lovely people in line during registration – several of whom I had already met online. It’s been fun to put faces to names. And I continue to be humbled and amazed at God’s goodness. He has placed people in my life that have helped me prepare for this week and I am so thankful!

I found my room with no trouble and even managed to find a parking space that tilts ever so slightly down and has a curb – I do not trust Brian’s parking brake so this gave me extra peace of mind that I wouldn’t be the one known as “that girl whose car went down the mountain in the middle of the night.”

Of course, in true “newbie” style, I managed to get lost.

Really.

Picture it. Me. Tote bag over my shoulder. Wandering the halls of a building looking for an exit, and then eventually just turning around and going back out the door I came in and wandering in what I hoped was the right direction.

I did eventually find the building I was looking for – totally by accident.

Since then, it’s been pretty busy. I’ve had a class, dinner, and got to hear Jerry B. Jenkins – who it turns out is very funny. I didn’t expect to laugh so much.

So, that was Sunday. Now to get ready for Monday.

Ah. Monday. When the fun really begins. Tomorrow I have my critique and my first appointment with an agent.

I’m going to lie down.

What a week!

I’m doing laundry, buying groceries for two weeks, trying to think of every possible scenario that might present itself while I’m away and prepare for it in advance, doing laundry – oh, I already said that. Well, there’s enough laundry to deserve a double mention.

On the writing front, I’m almost ready. I’m afraid to say I am ready, because I don’t want to jinx it, and because it sounds cocky and because it isn’t true.

I’m as ready as I’m gonna get.

That’s more like it.

But all this preparation and angst – I’ll be away from my family for 6 of the next 8 days – got me thinking.

Scary, I know.

I got to thinking about how Jesus might have felt as he prepared to leave the disciples. Now, Jesus, being God and knowing everything, could have just been like “Oh, they’ll be fine” and left it at that. But Jesus, being human and experiencing everything we feel didn’t do that. He asked the Father (you can look it up – John 14) to send the disciples a Comforter who would stay with them (and us) forever.

Now, in my case, I know my children will be fine. They have a wonderful father who is more than capable of dressing, bathing and feeding them. They’ll have a blast since they get to hang out with Grandma and Aunt Jennifer the whole time. So I’m not worried. I’m not. Quit laughing. I. Am. Not. Worried.

But think of what Jesus saw when He looked at his disciples. Talk about children. Children with the spiritual maturity of a five year old on a good day. Children who couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. Children who needed Him. Desperately.

And He saw us. Two thousand years later. Often with the spiritual maturity of a three year old on a bad day. Children who need Him desperately.

So the Father sent the Comforter. And Jesus sits at the right hand and intercedes on our behalf. Because while He is not here physically with us, He loves us. He misses us. He longs for the day when the Father says “Go” and He can bring us to where He is. Forever.

I have some friends who are hurting today. They’ve recently lost fathers and grandfathers. They celebrated Mother’s Day, knowing it would be the last time they got to do that with their mom on earth. They’ve gotten bad news from test results and the future looks grim.

I’ve been there. I know the ache and confusion of wondering why God doesn’t fix this or that.

I don’t have the answers.

But I know my Jesus. And I know He loves us.

I know that the love I feel for my children is a fraction of the love He feels for us.

And I know that as much as I would never leave my children without preparing them for my absence, my Savior prepared us to go through life without his physical presence.

I know the Holy Spirit is present, praying for them when all they can do is cry. I know that Jesus is interceding on their behalf. I know that the Everlasting Arms of the Father are wrapped around them even as they feel like their world is crumbling.

I know He is holding them – and me – tight in His mighty hand. And there is no safer place to be.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet, I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15-16a ESV)

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