Fine Stories

I sit by the window with a pining in my heart. A yearning not fully describable. The evening light fades and I do not want to leave this chair and yet at the same time I long to go on long walks through beautiful countryside just outside my door (if I had countryside outside my door). To walk and dream and think.

I am here. Amidst the trees. Up in my tree house reading books that take me elsewhere like Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and other books (you will read about soon) that utter something deeper. A story. A good story that I, as the reader, want to be a part of.

To read Elinor's emotions and responses to delicate and perplexing situations is like a glimpse into my own life and how I would/should react to situations. To resonate with a character and the feelings so much shows the mark of a truly great writer. Each good story matters. It holds the creative side of God's creation in the form of imagination.

God gave us the ability to imagine places, characters, and stories because it all matters. We are all part of the larger story that God is writing and we get to sub-create in this world. Perhaps along the way, we catch glimpses of what God has in store for the true beginning of a new earth at chapter one through these stories. Just as in these good books, the ending is the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the characters.

So this pining in my heart is not something that can be wholly filled here, it is as C.S. Lewis says- Sehnsucht or a longing of what he says is like a thoughtful wishing (read more about that HERE), but these good stories I have been reading look beyond in that they capture the love of God through story.