Your memoir can have an outcome beyond your expectations

The Bible’s characters “may not have realized the privilege and certainly didn’t know the eternal impact they would make,” writes Priscilla Shirer in her Bible study, Jonah.

“How could they have known that their names would go down in God’s Word to encourage us millennia later?”

Realize the truth of what Priscilla says next:

“Like those holy heroes, you’ve got an outcome you can’t make out. . . .”

“In future generations, your story will be the one that encourages someone else to follow hard after God.”

Read that again and believe it:

“In future generations,

your story will be the one

that encourages someone else

to follow hard after God.”

Priscilla’s insights suggest ideas for your memoir: 

• Which Bible characters have impacted your life? Abraham? Moses? Ruth? Joseph? David? Esther? Peter?
• What did they say or do that helped define your life’s choices?
• What did they do that changed your life’s direction?

Include vignettes in your memoir illustrating why and how those characters have inspired you, influenced you, and shaped you into the person you are today.

Then do an about-face. God has used other people’s stories to encourage you, teach you, admonish, and inspire, so now it’s your turn to pass on the blessings. Turn from the past and look toward the future.

Stories are important. Your stories are important. You might never be able to guess how God will use them. For example:

“During my intense grieving moments, other people’s stories gave me words to describe the ache that was indescribable,” writes Dana Goodman. “They gave me hope that a new day would dawn, and I would not be stuck in the black forever.” (Dana Goodman, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning)

“I’ve seen it happen. . . .

A lost human being feels like they’re the only one

who has ever felt this much pain.

They don’t know how to reach out for help

but then, inside of a story . . .

they see every emotion or secret

or hope-for happy ending

that they’ve ever kept bottled up inside . . .

and they start to believe—maybe there’s more. . . .”

(Martha Carr, “Just Keep Writing”)

Let me ask: Do you see your writing as a privilege? As a ministry?

Do you realize the impact your memoir can make?

“Have you ever considered,” Priscilla asks, “that just as the previous stories encourage us along the way, yours will encourage someone else?”

God can use your words

to help readers experience God’s grace,

cling to hope, remain strong in their faith,

and delight in His love.

Write your stories!

How can you speak the truth in love in your memoir?

Sometimes God calls us to take a stand, to take a risk, to confront the elephant in the room. What needs to change in your family? your workplace? your community? your church? your city? your nation? your world?

Dear Chuck Swindoll writes, “All over this world, around us every day, are people who are looking for the truth to be lived out. . . . There are people watching you. . . . Remember, you are here by God's appointment, you are in His keeping, you are under His training, for His time.” 

Chuck's words remind me of a recent blog post in which I suggested that we memoirists can—sometimes we must—use our voices to make a difference. I wrote about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and of the Old Testament woman, Esther, and of a young boy named Hayden. (To read that post, click on On authoring change: Break the silence with your memoir.)

And in the memoir class I’ve been leading, we talked about speaking the truth in love, speaking truth to power, and the correct way to go about it.

Then on Sunday, my son-in-law’s sermon touched on the same topic. Brian said that when Jesus spoke, sometimes he stirred up animosity and resentment, even among his disciples once in a while. (See Mark 6:1-3 and Luke 4:28-29.)

Brian also pointed out that despite the tension Jesus created when he spoke the truth, he also was a man who attracted others, who offered healing and life. He sent his disciples to speak the truth but also to be appealing to others and bring restoration and hope.

Jesus and his disciples lived out that tension, and you and I are called to do the same. He calls us to tell the truth and at the same time serve others in love.

Here’s the hard part: We need to resist being obnoxious and abrasive. We’re to offer others a message of encouragement, to share the truth thoughtfully, gently, compassionately, and winsomely. And we need to extend grace to others because we all need to grow and change and mature. Nobody's perfect. 

“As a change agent, how do you

turn your dream of making a positive

and meaningful difference in the world into a reality?

You author change.

You write and publish a book

that inspires positive action or change

in individuals, communities,

organizations, or the world at large.

The world needs change agents.

It’s your time to make a positive and meaningful impact

with your words.”

(Nina Amir)

Perhaps you’ve cracked open an issue and sorted through it and have come to a clarity others haven’t yet. Take action. Speak up. WRITE.

Make a difference.

Invite others to re-think

their assumptions and conclusions.

Your memoir could help right a wrong.

It could trigger much-needed change and healing.

God could use your story

to give hope and courage to others—

perhaps it could even

make all the difference in one person’s life.

Lloyd Ogilvie penned this perfect prayer for memoirists and those who sense a need to speak up:

“Father . . . bless me with Your Spirit so that

I may disagree without being disagreeable,

share my convictions without being contentious,

and lift up truth without putting others down.

Help me to seek to convince without coercion,

persuade without power moves,

motivate without manipulation.”

(Lloyd John Ogilvie, Quiet Moments with God)

What can your Bible’s pages help you remember?

Which verses in your Bible have you underlined or highlighted? Look over a few and ask yourself why those are special to you.

Try to remember: Why and how did they speak to your heart? During which event or era were those verses your delight? Or your instruction? Or your only hope?

God longs for us to remember the amazing things He has done (Psalm 105:5), but too often we forget.

Mike Metzger writes,

“Many churches have forgotten the premium

that the historic Judeo-Christian tradition placed on remembrance . . .

and recalling the right things.

The ‘great sin’ of the Old Testament

was forgetfulness

(at least it’s the most recurrent offense).

‘Remember’ is the most frequent command

in the Old Testament.”

(Mike Metzger, Clapham Memo, 

January 19, 2007, “Back and Forth”)

Look through your Bible and notice the Bible verses you cherished in the past, and remember those verses that changed your life, passages you held onto in dark times, verses that made you fall down in worship—and those that buoyed you in your everyday happenings.

Stories that go with those verses could provide good material for your memoir.

One day I spent half an hour looking through an old Bible, one I used from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. Reading underlined passages sent me back to the ministries I had during those years, and to specific locales, and they reminded me of people and issues and heartbreaks and joys.

Reading them again also reminded me God was always there in the midst, working out His best, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

Below are a few of the verses highlighted in my old Bible. Perhaps in reading them, you, too, will discover story ideas of your own.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)

Above all else, guard your heart. . . . (Proverbs 4:23)

All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. . . . I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God. (Psalm 38:9, 15)

Test me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind. (Psalm 25:2)

God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering. (Genesis 41:52)

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done. . . . (Genesis 50:20)

You are the light of the world. . . . Let your light shine . . . . (Matthew 5:14, 16)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

I have seen the misery of my people. . . .  I have heard them crying. . . . I am concerned about their suffering. . . . I have come down to rescue them. (Exodus 3:7-8)

When they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped. (Exodus 4:31)

Now you will see what I will do. . . . Then you will know that I am the Lord your God. (Exodus 6:1-7)

The Lord kept vigil that night. . . . (Exodus 12:42)

I will sing to the Lord,

for he is highly exalted. . . .

The Lord is my strength and my song;

he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him. 

(Exodus 15:1-2)

I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Exodus 19:4)

In all things God works for the good of those who love him. (Romans 8:28)

Therefore, I urge you . . . in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:1-2)

Denise Beck writes that when she takes her Bible’s crinkled pages and spends quiet time alone with God, “He meets me in a new way. He teaches me and transforms me, and those places and spaces are heavy with the stories He showed me. Stories of who He is. Stories of who I am.  Stories of who I am in Him.”

Take a few days to go through your Bible

and find passages you cherish,

verses that changed you,

verses that helped you make decisions,

passages you held onto in dark times,

verses that made you bow down in worship.

Include verses that nurtured you

through your everyday routines

and those that delighted you with joy.

Then write your stories—

stories of who He is, who you are,

and who you are in Him.

A mother is “the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street”

Last week in the memoir class I lead, we discussed the importance of bringing a memoir’s main characters to life.

Readers need to feel they’re at least acquainted with (and maybe even attached to) key people. You don’t need to flesh out every person in your memoir, but readers want to connect with your main characters. When they do, they feel more immersed in your story and keep reading.

onewildword.com/2011/07/03

 Similarly, you don’t need to tell readers everything about a key character. Discern the most relevant attributes and leave out the rest. If your character was an avid fisherman and a Kansas City Chiefs fan but those details have no relevance to your story, you can probably leave out that information. (How about those Chiefs and their Super Bowl win?!)

In Writing the Memoir, Judith Barrington says, “Characters come alive when you pick the particularly telling details that can make the difference between a cardboard character and a real, live person.” She says we should select “those few [details] that capture the essence of that person . . . a quirk of speech, a mannerism, the way his hair falls across his face, an item of clothing, the smell of her, or how she walks.”

Today let’s think about mothers—maybe your mother, a friend’s mother, a friend or relative who is a mother, or a mother-in-law. You want to create realistic characters, capturing their most significant features and actions and habits and mannerisms.

Mary Larmoyeux shows us a lovely poem, "Your Mother Is Always With You," by Deborah R. Culver:

Your mother is always with you.

She’s the whisper of the leaves

as you walk down the street.

She’s the smell of certain foods you remember,

flowers you pick, the fragrance of life itself.

She’s the cool hand on your brow

when you’re not feeling well.

She’s your breath in the air on a cold winter’s day.

She is the sound of the rain that lulls you to sleep,

the colors of a rainbow;

she is Christmas morning.

Your mother lives inside your laughter.

She’s the place you came from, your first home,

and she’s the map you follow with every step you take.

She’s your first love, your first friend,

even your first enemy,

but nothing on earth can separate you—

not time, not space, not even death.

(Deborah R. Culver, "Your Mother Is Always With You," 

used by permission)

Then Mary Larmoyeux paraphrased Deborah’s poem to describe her own mother. Here are excerpts from her "My Mother Is Always With Me":

My mother is . . . the reminder that things work out.

She’s the smell of sugar cookies . . .

and Sunday roast . . .

and the sight of kneading bread. 

She’s the hand that picked Magnolias,

the sound of prayers with Dad.

She’s the word of kindness needed,

the trust that God’s nearby. . . .

She’s the place that I came from, my first home—

one I’ll always know. . . .

(Mary Larmoyeux, “My Mother Is Always With Me.”)

Set aside a few minutes to do what Mary did:  Using Deborah R. Culver’s original quote for inspiration, capture the essence of the mother you’re writing about.

Was she refined and elegant—or salty like Tugboat Annie?

Was she boisterous—or mild-mannered?

Wild and scatterbrained—or methodical and orderly?

Courageous—or cowardly?

Haughty and self-important—or humble and modest?

Self-absorbed—or selfless?

Savvy, graceful, strong—or uninformed, clumsy, weak?  

Petite—or tall?

Slender—or obese?

Did she have a sense of humor—or was she clueless?

What were her rituals, her habits, her hobbies, her quirks?

Did she have a short fuse? A voice like an angel? A contagious laugh? A heart of gold?

What did she believe?

What did she live for?

Review the attributes Deborah R. Culver

and Mary Larmoyeux used.

Capture similar details about a mother in your story.

All of us have stories about a mother—your mother,

a friend’s mother, a friend who is a mother,

 or your mother-in-law.

Make her come alive for your readers.

Make time to write.

If you will, your readers and their families

will be all the richer for them.