Story. The Middle.

I keep talking about Story.

(The conference we attended.  Not just “story” in general.  Or – maybe that too.)

It was so much good information.

And so much good information takes me a while to process.

One speaker – this guy – talked about the similar nature of every story.

How

every story

follows the same pattern.

Beginning.  Middle.  End.

Usually

the middle

is the largest part of any story.

And the middle usually includes

some inciting incident.

Some story line, some ordeal, some tragedy, some event,

that propels the action of the story.

That moves along every other detail.

An inciting incident.

And after the speaker shared his inciting incident,

I thought about mine.

I think I was about 33 years old

before my inciting incident occurred.

It began (years earlier actually)

like lots of inciting incidents do.

With a phone call.

With a conversation.

With a doctor’s prognosis.

Cancer.

My mother.

Her sickness.

Her long suffering.

Her eventual,

painful,

excruciating,

lingering death.

And the tornado of events that were eventually to follow.

I was working as a high school English teacher the year she was first diagnosed.

I remember one particular class

and one serious discussion

between my students and myself.

About my mom

and her disease

and her potential healing.

Or not.

I remember confessing to them,

this class of tenth graders

sitting in desks to learn British Literature,

the cross point of belief and reality.

Of rubber and road.

Of trust and talk.

Of faith and ideals.

Some sincere, not-yet-even-needing-to-shave, teenage boy asked me,

“Is God still good if your mom dies?

Will you still love God?”

I didn’t answer right away.

How could I?

Slowly, I breathed out.

I breathed in.

“I think God’s goodness does not rely on whether or not He allows my mom to be healed right now.”

That’s what I said.

I thought I might believe it even.

But I hesitated.

Breathed out again.

And then I shared the whole truth with this student.

“I don’t know.

I don’t know.”

Those moments.

That inciting incident.

That shaped me.

Is shaping me.

Even still.

I was honest with that student then.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know how I would feel.

What I would believe.

How it would look.

These years, these years after, are teaching me

that I do believe that God is still good.

I will still love God.

In a way that I cannot understand.

With a love that has more substance

and more knowledge

than in all the years before.