even in the storm, god is still writing our story

​I had dinner with a work colleague last night. I hadn't seen her in a couple of months, just the nature of how we do work these days.

She asked me, how are you doing? I said, I'm surviving.

Then I caught myself. Or maybe God caught me. Because he reminded me that if the only story I have to tell in the middle of a struggle is 'I'm surviving' - then I'm completely missing the story that God wants to tell.

God doesn't bring storms into our lives to see what we're made of, he brings them to see what we make of them. And what we make of them, that's our story. That's HIS story. That's the answer to 'how are you doing?'

There's an old English idiom - live to tell the tale.

I'm guilty at times of simplifying that idiom to one word: live. I can get to believing the object of a challenge is to survive it. But the truth is, surviving without a survival story is wasting a struggle.

I often tell the story of my first attempt at an ultra race. Half way through the race, I was overcome by heat - I was seeing things that weren't there. Trust me, in that moment, my story was ONLY survive.

I had a friend run ahead and get me water - adding 4 miles to her race. Other competitors along the way stopped and offered to help while I sat resting on a rock - significantly slowing down their races. Suddenly, the story wasn't about surviving a storm, but people coming together to help pull someone out of a storm.

I did survive that day, but the story wasn't about survival. It was much more beautiful than that.

Nothing ruins our sunny day plans in life more than a rainy day. But just because the rain changes our story, that doesn't mean the rain isn't trying to write a new one.

The miraculous thing is, rain often tells a better story than the sun. But too often, we're too busy moaning about the day the rain has ruined to be grateful for all that the rain has delivered.

I told my dinner friend about my new job at the state. How I'll do more of what I love doing. How it financially helped me at a time when I needed the help most. How there was sudden flexibility in the middle of a storm begging for more flexibility.

Those were all important elements of my survival story that are often easy to overlook.

Sometimes we stop writing our story when the storm comes along. We sit and look out the window and watch the rain and think, when the rain stops, I'll get back to writing my story.

All the while, out there in the rain, God sits writing. He is still writing our story. And I wonder, is HE wondering, will Keith even see this story I'm writing in the rain?

And when someone asks him how he's doing, will he simply say, I'm surviving. Or will he tell the story I'm out here writing in the rain?

Because that IS why God writes stories in the rain, so we will tell them.

If you're in the middle of a struggle, write it down. Every rainy day detail. Because someday, someone will ask you, how are you doing?

When they do, don't tell them you're surviving, tell them your survival story. And when you do, imagine God sitting outside, under an umbrella, smiling at you as you do.