Sitting by the Fire with Donald Miller

Christmas this year just doesn't have the same feeling it usually does. I will spend tomorrow and Christmas Day with my 'new' family but my family is gone. The house is too quiet. We celebrated Christmas two weekends ago and it was great. Now, I just keep seeing statii (my designated plural for status) about everyone spending time with family. I'm not really in the mood right now. Am I having a little bit of a pity party? Probably. I've come to grips with that. I've looked several times online to find last minute flights so maybe I could be with my family. No such luck. Christmas time = permission to jack up prices.

In the meantime, I'm nestled on the couch by the fire with Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz. Tonight though, I'm reading his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.
I'm not quite halfway through the book and find the timing oddly coincidental. From the moment I finished the Author's Note, I knew this book would change things some how. Change me. The premise of the book keeps circling back to this statement: "The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, then it won't make a life meaningful either."

As a society, we spend so much time working. We focus so much on the money we need for bills or the money we want for the hottest new electronic. We forget that these are not the things that make life meaningful. When we read a book or watch a movie, we don't want to see someone working all the time in order to make the next mortgage payment. We want to fall in love with the characters, see them face conflict head on and watch them celebrate in the end. Our hearts break. Our eyes fill with tears. Our mouths let out cries of victory at the end of the films with which we are engrossed.

But are we taking the steps to have these moments in our own lives? If our lives were movies, how would we feel if the credits rolled at this very moment? Would we walk away feeling like the $10 we just spent was wasted?

This year, 2009, has been one of unbelievable changes for me. December 31st, when the credits roll for 2009, I will walk away feeling like I got a multi-Oscar award winning film at a dollar movie theatre.
So as I sit here tonight with Donald Miller and the glowing embers of a once brilliant fire, I am brought out of my self-pity. I move forward in quiet reflection and begin to think about the things that will make up my next story, the next role I will play and the next year's worth of stories to tell others. Because every year, on December 31st (and eventually on my last day when the credits really do roll), I want to feel like everyone I know got their money's worth to be part of this story.

My prayer is that you all have that same feeling.