For
the past couple of weeks, you’ve considered writing stories in your memoir that
embrace both mourning and thanksgiving. (Click on What can you offer readers about mourning AND thanksgiving?)
You’ve
experienced heartbreaks, setbacks,
and
devastating losses.
But
now, years later, you recognize
there’s
more to your story.
Something
to be thankful for.
Not
only did you survive, but now
you
acknowledge the silver lining of your heartache.
You
came out on the other side of your sorrow
thanking
God for the blessings wrapped up in the hurts.
He
brought beauty from your ashes:
He
gave you the oil of joy—a joyous blessing—
instead
of mourning,
and
a garment of praise
instead
of heaviness and despair (Isaiah 61:3).
That’s
what you want to put in writing
for
your family and friends.
(See
Part 2: What can you offer readers
about
mourning AND thanksgiving?)
As
beautiful as the story now is, it isn’t complete unless you include takeaways
for readers.
Offering
people a takeaway means you tell them the most important lesson you took away
from a given experience. You tell them how you gained clarity and wisdom, how
that helped make sense of your life, and how you changed as a result.
Give
words to the principle you learned—think of the takeaway as a precept, a
saying, a guideline, an adage—something readers can live by, a principle that can
be life-changing for them, too.
Your takeaways are the most powerful part of your memoir. They offer readers hope, or wisdom, or courage, or laughter, or a solution, or a new way of living or loving.
Your
takeaways communicate to readers:
“I
know this is true because I have experienced it.
I
have lived it. It changed my life.
Perhaps
it will change your life, too.”
(Read
more at Your memoir’s takeaways can change lives.)
Below
you’ll find examples of takeaways. I hope they’ll inspire you to share with others
about both mourning and thanksgiving:
“At
first glance, the thought that there is a blessing in our wounds sounds absurd,”
writes Julie Sousa Bradley Lilly. She lists memories of “betrayals, insults,
abandonments, embarrassments, injuries, pain and loss. . . .”
“When
I have resisted bitterness and sought [God] in a hard or painful circumstance,
He has used it to transform me into a better person that chooses a different
path. Betrayals made me loyal. Insults made me kind. Abandonments made me
faithful. . . . And injuries, pain and loss made me more compassionate and
generous. . . .
“Terrible things happen in this life, and I wouldn’t for a second minimize another’s suffering. I only want to offer an opportunity to exchange a label of ‘victim’ for one that says, ‘blessed.’” (Blessings in Our Wounds, Julie Sousa Bradley Lilly, Ragamuffin Warrior)
Below
you’ll find several other sample takeaways to help you write your own
takeaways:
“I’ve
learned to embrace change, and acknowledge my fears knowing that no matter what
lies ahead, God is ever present and I never have to walk this journey alone.
And neither do you. Let’s not forget that although change, closed chapters, and
life moving forward may bring us saddened hearts, it also brings us out of our
comfort zones, spurring new beginnings and opportunities. By altering our
perspective, often without notice, little by little we transform—our hearts,
our views, our lives, our faith. We become wiser, stronger, more resilient, and
positive . . . . What a gift. One day at a time, we got this.” (Daphne Bach
Greer—the Sweeter Side of Grief)
The Farm Wyfe, Amanda Wells, offers this: “I’ve done enough living to know there
are seasons when life challenges us, when God gives us opportunities to trust
him even when the outlook is bleak. Even when exhaustion overrides all else and
I’m hanging by a thread, I trust him because I have seen his faithfulness. I’ve
experienced God’s hand on my life and I know he will get me through the hard
times. . . . because God’s got this even when I don’t.”
Kaitlyn Bouchillon writes about praying to God for relief from something awful, only to
find Him silent . . . for a long time. Nothing seemed to change.
“It’s
there, in the place where things don’t make sense,” she writes, “. . . that a
miracle begins to take place.”
She
offers this takeaway: “This is the hard but beautiful truth: The ‘other side’ of
The Thing you’re hoping for, praying for, daily asking God for . . . it might
not end up looking like what you hoped/prayed/asked. It might be that what
changes is . . . you.
“It
might be that instead of walls falling,
by
God’s grace and His strength,
at
the end of it all you’re still standing.
That’s
still a miracle.
That’s
still an answered prayer.”
Kaitlyn's words, “It might be that what changes is you,” reminds me of my own experience of transitioning from mourning to thanksgiving, in Colombia, South America, after suffering several months of culture shock at a remote mission center named Lomalinda (pretty hill).
Equatorial heat and intense humidity brought me to my knees.
I was utterly
discombobulated and, in desperation, I refused to unpack and threatened to run
away and walk (!) all the way home to Seattle by way of Central America, Mexico,
California, Oregon, and finally arrive in my Washington State.
But, after
a few months of settling into my job and getting acquainted with Lomalinda’s
people, to my surprise, I discovered that I loved living there.
I
wrote in my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir:
“In
moving to Lomalinda, I had taken a wild-eyed dive of faith and, halfway into
it, I wondered where I’d land. And when I did land, I hit the ground hard. That
place seemed so alien and harsh—yet that’s where God rescued me from myself.
“I
had flown into the mission center as a scared, immature, unadventurous,
doubting Thomas. God didn’t need me to accomplish His work in Colombia—He could
have found someone else to do my job. He did more inside me than He did through
me, and I suspect that was His point all along. He knew my faith and I needed
to mature.
“Through
situations, experiences—sometimes derailing, other times almost
imperceptible—God expanded my heart and soul and mind and revolutionized the
way I would look at life and Him for the rest of my days.
“He
showed me that despite my fears and weaknesses,
He
is strong.
When
chaos reigns, He is in control.
When
the unpredictable happens, He’s already there.
When
I am vulnerable, He is my protection.
Exhausted,
God is my strength.
Under
that searing Lomalinda sun, God sheltered me,
and
my family, under the shadow of His wings.
When
I wanted to pull back,
He
took my hand and nudged me forward,
and
when my grip grew weary,
His
brawny hand held on.
He
sat beside me when I grieved over
taking
my kids away from
their
grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
He
became my calm in the storm,
my
rock when my world shook.
Every
moment, every day, every night,
He
hovered over my family and me
and
calmed us with His love.
Sometimes
God even showed His sense of humor,
though
at the time I usually failed to appreciate it.
“
. . . If I had refused to move to Lomalinda, I’d have missed tarantulas and
scorpions and cockroaches and howler monkeys’ breathy howls in the distance and
cicadas’ ear-piercing whistles and parrots’ rowdy calls morning and evening.
“I’d
have missed eating piraña, boa constrictor, caiman, dove, platanos, ajiaco . .
. and cinnamon rolls seasoned with dead weevils. . . . I’d have missed drinking
chicha, and tinto, and warm bottled sodas, sometimes with bugs inside.
“Before
Lomalinda . . . never would I . . . have
envisioned myself chopping up a dead pig on the kitchen floor. . . .
“But
moving to Lomalinda, despite my whines and protestations, took me—physically,
culturally, and spiritually—to places better, higher, and finer than anything I
could have dreamed.
“Glenny
Gardner had welcomed me by showing me the coolest thing he could think of—a boa
constrictor. In the same way, Dave wanted his wife and kids to experience the
coolest thing he could imagine—living in Lomalinda. Rich offered me the coolest
opportunity he knew—a trip to La Guajira. And from the beginning to the end,
God, too, was offering me the coolest thing—working in Lomalinda.
“God
had allowed what I would not have asked for
to
give me what I didn’t know I wanted.”
(Catherine
P. Downing, Sparks of Redemptive Grace)
For more inspiration, click here to read Ashley Travous’s takeaways in her powerful
post, To the Woman Who Stole My Husband.
You’ll
also find good insights from Reflecting on God’s Wonders in Difficult Times.
Take
plenty of time to craft your takeaways. Pinpoint your message. Clarity is your
goal.
Your
takeaways will strengthen your readers' faith. They will give them wisdom that they’ll take with them long
after they’ve read your final page.
Your
story can offer hope to those in despair. Your story can model courage overcoming
cowardice. Your story can model calm for
those tangled up in chaos.
Your
story can shine light in the darkness:
“At
times, our own light goes out
and
is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each
of us has cause to think with deep gratitude
of
those who have lighted the flame within us.”
(Albert
Schweitzer)
Who
needs to read your story?
Someone
is waiting for your spark to rekindle theirs.
