Day 30.

First day on the ski hill today for a few of the Collins fam.

Cue Vangelis, ‘Titles’….

I did it. Set my goal. I completed my goal! 30 days of writing.

30 posts drawing thousands of visitors from over 50 countries. New subscribers. New friends. Old friends reconnecting. Faithful cheerleaders. Daily prompters. THANKYOU! I just love fulfilling my passion, to encourage, to cheer you on. Challenging you to a deeper place of spirituality, of self-examination, asking the who and why, integrating that with the world outside, to a place of knowing a daily reality of God in your world.

I want to encourage you to set your own goals and realize your part in the big story, and to understand the part you play in your story is so important. So needed, not only for you, for those around you.

Yes, that includes you…

Donald Miller writes these four points on the Storyline blog:

• Every story is built around a character or characters. This part is easy. By God’s design, you are the principal character of your story because you are the only character in any story you can control. You are the storyteller and the principal character all in one. The story may be about something other than you, but you have agency and to deny that is to tell a really boring story. The first of many keys to living a great life is to take full responsibility for our lives.

• The character has to want something. If the main character in the story doesn’t want something or if what they want is muddled, the story lacks direction and purpose. The same is true in life. When we want something we launch into the story question, that is “will the character get what they want.” But that’s not all. What we want needs to be good, self sacrificing and we have to want whatever it is we want more than we want glory or to feed our ego or even validation. When we find that thing we want, our story not only engages the world, it engages us and we become much more interested in life itself.

• Every character must go through conflict. Far from being a bad thing, conflict in story is a necessity. In America we live in a culture that avoids conflict but we do so to our own detriment. Conflict fills a story with meaning and beauty. Not only this, but conflict gives value to that which we are trying to attain. And conflict is the only way a character actually changes. There is no character development without conflict. So when we choose our ambitions, they should be difficult and we should anticipate and even welcome conflict.

• Stories must resolve. In stories there’s a scene called a climax. A climactic scene will resolve all the conflict in the story in a single action. Life doesn’t really work this way, but having a visual scene in your mind that you can head toward is motivating. For instance, if you want to lose 30 pounds, don’t set that as a goal, make the goal finishing a marathon. Finishing a marathon is visual and much more motivating.

My Prayer for you today:

“….is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”

― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

This isn’t the end of my blogging, just a little less often.

See you soon,

Love, Michelle xoxo

For those who are joining today. Here’s a quick link to my 30 NaBloPoMo posts!

1. Uproot for Fruit. 

2. Getting intimate with Strangers. 

3. Stop for the One. 

4. Uncomfortable. 

5. TuneIn 

6. All in a Days Work 

7. Baby steps to dreams. 

8. Billy Graham’s last Sermon. 

9. Marnie’s Story. 

10. Remembrance Day  

11. I Choose to Forgive. 

12. Meditation: That’s what you need. 

13. Glorious Ruins. 

14. Beautiful BC. 

15. Stretched. Exploring Beauty. 

16. Sadness and Joy Kiss. 

17.  Sunday Smiles.

18. Reach Out.

19. A Chat with my Blogging Muse.

20. Expectations.

21. Cheers.

22. Fly.

23. A Cosmic Trio.

24. Sunday Soup.

25. Diamonds.

26. Hope on a Rope. 

27. A Wordy Reminder.

28. Giftastic.

29. Trees. 

30. A Bigger Story.