"We were written not only to hear and tell stories, but we are a story. Our lives are composed of millions of stories, but most have been forgotten or simply don’t register as important enough to remember." -Dan Allender Issue 7 And Sons Magazine

I just recently bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy from the infamous seller of goods known as Wally World. I've been looking for them for a while, but due to tight constraints on my finances, I had yet to purchase them. As I plopped in the Fellowship of the Ring and sat back in my chair waiting to be entertained, a very exciting anticipation washed over me. I blew it off quite haphazardly as excitement for a good movie; however, not too long into the movie, I was completely sucked in.

I was feeling the same thrills Frodo felt as he was fleeing the Shire to carry the One Ring to Rivendor. I felt the pain, as the ring started to sink its teeth into Frodo and bend his will to the will of the evil one. I shared the same feeling of joy when surrounded by his companions and the feeling of loss as his companions fell to either the power of the Ring or the sword of the merciless Uruk Hai.

The story twisted my heart in all different directions, and it wasn't just because it was a good movie. It was because I long to understand my story as Frodo understood his.

Thanks to John Eldridge, his sons, and friends, I've come to realize that knowing that we are in an epic story makes all the difference as we move through our lives. It changes the way we see and deal with disappointment; it changes the way in which we face confrontation. It allows us to move more boldly through our lives, with strength and wisdom.

But I must pause right here and clarify something: our personal stories are understood and found exclusively through the understanding of God, and the story that he has laid down for us.

I will not avoid that fact or try and seem more clever then I am. Up until now I have tried to avoid blatantly proclaiming God in my writing, in an attempt to not be lost among the thousands of other articles out there arguing for God. I was hoping that subtly, people would be drawn toward God by their own inner motives, but with a subject like this one, if I did not state it as I have, I would be lying and doing a great disservice to not only those who read this, but to the subject itself.

And with that in place, let us continue.

The stumbling block in understanding my personal story and how to come to a firm belief of it has risen out of not only personal wounds, but the way that the world portrays stories now-a-days. They have become fantastical adventures with magic and wonder, meant only for children or the delusional. Once you reach a certain age, you must abandon the idea of some bigger story, and start "dealing" with real life.

But how are we to deal with life if we have no context in which to understand it? How do we deal with complete devastation if we don't know why it is happening to us? How do we comprehend the beauty of joy if we don't know what makes it so beautiful?

Our stories need to increase in importance in our lives as we get older. We will need them so that we might understand why things happen to us and their significance! Look at those sad souls that have cut off any identification with epic stories. They move through their lives misunderstanding every event that occurs to them. They have no clue why trouble found them. They did everything right, didn't they? They got the right degree, the right job, and the right house, so why do they feel depressed? Why is their marriage on the rocks? Why are their kids out of control?

We need stories so that we might understand our story. And so, in an effort to understand my own story, and to proclaim the importance of your story, I am going to spend the next couple of articles diving into this topic, diving into the importance of our stories. We need to figure this out; we need to understand the weight that our story has upon the rest of our life. So the story begins with a step outside our comfortable houses: a step into the unknown.

Next Article: Stepping into the Unknown