We see stories in the making day by day in the ordinariness of life. These are stories, sometimes punctuated with a bit of excitement, sometimes enhanced by a brief excursion into the extraordinary, and sometimes disrupted by incomprehensible tragedy; but most of them are stories of life in the routine.
What is the plot and who are the characters in these stories? In most instances, the plot is simple: Doing what needs to be done to get by. Perhaps there is an underlying hope that someday life will be better, more purposeful, more eventful, or more joyful, if not now, then in the future for children and grandchildren. But for the here and now, this is their life, and they must live it as best they can.
The characters are those who are in their places, doing what they do as they intersect and interchange with others on the way to their places. These are not fictitious characters, but real people, living out their own life stories in the market, in their shops, in their offices, and in their homes.
As we watch these extraordinarily ordinary stories unfold, it occurs to us that somehow we have been drawn into the plot and have been given the privilege of becoming participants in their on-going life-stories.
What difference will that make? Will their stories end differently because we have become part of it? Is this ministry to which we have been called, just this: To participate in the ordinariness of their life-stories, and in the process, somehow to inject a measure of hope and meaning that comes from experiencing the incomparable grace of God? To be continued- - - - - -
