Reach Out Chapter 8: Authors Of Lives

Open and Relational Theology & Social Psychology

The 60-Second Read

Resilience & Narrative Identity: We don’t just live our lives; we tell ourselves a story about our lives to make sense of it and guide us. “Narrative Identity” is the internalized and evolving story we construct to make sense of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

The Insight: When a crisis hits, our story is interrupted. We can fall into a “Contamination Sequence” (a good story ruined by tragedy), leaving us feeling like victims or perpetual survivors just trying to keep from drowning. But true resilience—what psychologists call “ordinary magic”—happens when we choose a “Redemptive Sequence.” This is the conscious decision to take the pen back and write a new chapter where the hardship becomes the foundation for a larger, more meaningful life.

The Action: Stop letting external forces dictate your story. Take inventory of your current reality, practice gratitude to shift your brain out of a scarcity mindset, and actively author your own future. Meaning isn’t something you find; it’s something you make with God leading you.

References: Narrative Identity (Dr. Dan McAdams); Resilience & “Ordinary Magic” (Dr. Ann Masten)

The_Family — The Family. Gemini Generated Image

Reach Out Chapter 8: Authors of Lives

Morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows, catching dust motes that danced in the bright air. Mary softly hummed to the upbeat rhythm of a pop song played softly on the radio in the living room. A cool breeze ruffled the curtains, chasing away the stagnant air of the past few weeks. The kitchen table, usually a dumping ground for mail and worry, had been wiped completely clean. The rich aroma of fresh coffee filled the room as Elias set three steaming mugs down next to a blank yellow legal pad and a calculator. He sat at the head of the table, looking at his wife and daughter with a new, vibrant energy.

“We are not selling the house to a predatory company, and that’s final!” Elias announced. “And we are not going to spend the next six months hiding under the covers waiting for the sky to fall. We are taking the pen back. We’re going to write our own story,” he said with the determination fit for a powerful king.

Mary folded her hands over her coffee mug. “I like the sound of that. But how do we pay for the ink?”

“Before we get to the math,” Elias said, reaching out to take Mary’s hand, and then Sarah’s. “We need to get our heads right. We need to remember what we actually have.”

He bowed his head. Mary and Sarah closed their eyes.

“Lord,” Elias began, his voice steady. “Thank you! Thank you that we are sitting at this table together, healthy and whole. Thank you for this house, even with the leaky roof, because it is still a roof. We ask that you lead us into a bright future. Show us the open doors, and give us the courage to walk past the closed ones. Help us connect with the right people, have the courage to reach out, and more importantly, help us be the right people for others. Amen.”

“Amen,” Mary and Sarah echoed. The heavy, frantic energy that had plagued the house for weeks seemed to evaporate, replaced by a calm focus.

“Okay,” Elias said, tapping the legal pad. “Let’s trim the fat. Where do we stand?”

“I’ve cancelled our club memberships, unnecessary online subscriptions, and two of our streaming services. We’re no longer ordering food for delivery. I cancelled cable TV because we can stream programs that we really want to see for a lot less. Some of the recurring membership fees I didn’t even know we were paying,” she said with exasperation. “And I’m shopping at less expensive grocery stores and putting off impulse purchases, deciding to wait to see if we really need things.” Mary took a deep breath and then cheered. “I can’t believe this saves us $500.00 a month!”

“Way to go, Mary!” Elias said. “You’re today’s hero.”

Sarah took a deep breath and sat up straight. “I’ve been thinking about this. I’m going to postpone college for a year. I can get a full-time job. I can bring in an income that helps float us until Dad replaces his salary. Mortgage and one car.”

Mary looked at her, her protective instincts flaring. “Sarah, honey, you don’t have to give up your dreams for us.”

“It’s not giving up, Mom. It’s pausing. I don’t even know what I want to major in anyway. I need to get over being a cheerleader.”

Elias nodded, pointing his pen at Sarah. “I actually think it’s a brilliant move. Most students go to college, change their major three times, and rack up debt because they haven’t shaken off high school culture yet. Taking a year to work, explore, and figure out who you actually are? That is a worthwhile use of time. You’re the family hero, too.”

Mary exhaled, looking at the two of them. “Alright. Then I am going to cling to my job. It’s our anchor for now. But I’ll be honest, this whole experience has shaken my foundations. Once we are stable again, I might be looking at my own future choices, just like you have, Elias. I don’t want to decorate store windows forever. I think there’s more for me.”

“Good,” Elias smiled. “Now, for my part. I am going to stop just puttering around in the garage and fixing the neighbors’ fences for free.”

He slid a printed spreadsheet across the table.

“I’ve created a business plan,” Elias explained. “I understand building codes, I know how to research best practices, and I have the skills. I see high-paying handyman and custom repair jobs all over social media every single day. That remodeling job I had before my more recent jobs is paying off. I’m not just a guy with a hammer; I’m a residential problem-solver. If Mary’s check covers the mortgage and her car, my projected income from these projects can easily cover food, utilities, and my truck payment.”

Sarah leaned over the table, scanning the numbers on the spreadsheet. Her eyes went wide. “Wait… if you cover utilities and food, and I work full time…” She looked up, a massive grin spreading across her face. “Yay! I get to keep my cell phone and my internet!”

Elias laughed, leaning back in his chair. “Yep! Because you’re paying for it, kiddo. You get to pay for all your own frills, back up the basic household budget, and save whatever is left for college.”

“Welcome to adulthood,” Mary teased, bumping Sarah’s shoulder.

“I can handle it,” Sarah said proudly.

“I know you can,” Elias said, his tone turning a bit more serious. “But since you are taking a gap year, you are still going to be a student. I’m giving you an assignment.”

“An assignment? Dad, come on.”

“A reading assignment. It’s about attitude and resilience. I want you to look up a man named Viktor Frankl. He was a psychiatrist who was thrown into a concentration camp during the Nazi Holocaust. They took everything from him, but he realized they couldn’t take his ability to choose his own attitude. He didn’t let the camp write his story. He wrote his own.”

Sarah looked intrigued but intimidated. “That’s… really heavy, Dad.”

“I know it’s heavy,” Elias agreed. “So here’s one you might relate to a bit more. This is about attitude and resilience, things we really need to make our future bright,” Elias said. “I want you to look up a woman named Liz Murray. By the time she was fifteen, her parents were lost to addiction and she was literally homeless, sleeping on subway trains in New York City. She was a victim of terrible circumstances.”

Sarah stopped smiling, listening closely.

“But she realized that if she didn’t take control, the streets were going to write her final chapter,” Elias continued. “So, while she was still homeless, she went back to high school. She studied on the sidewalks. She ended up winning a scholarship and graduating from Harvard. She used her rock-bottom moment to strip away everything that wasn’t essential and wrote a completely new narrative for her life.”

Elias turned his head away for a moment. Mary saw a tear.

Elias, his voice cracking, said, “I stumbled onto them in my Internet searches, so I know what an inspiration these people are.”

“Here is a story for all of us. It’s about the power of gratitude. Attitude shapes our every thought, and gratitude shapes our attitude to make it constructive instead of destructive. This story is about both resilience and thankfulness,” Elias said, leaning forward. “I want you to look up a woman named Corrie ten Boom. During World War II, she and her sister Betsie were thrown into a Nazi concentration camp for hiding Jewish refugees. They were shoved into an overcrowded barracks that was absolutely swarming with fleas.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose, but was listening closely.

“Betsie told Corrie they had to pray and give thanks for everything in that barracks—even the fleas,” Elias continued. “Corrie thought her sister had lost her mind. How do you thank God for fleas? But she did it anyway.”

Mary watched Elias, captivated by the story herself.

“Months later,” Elias said softly, “they found out why the camp guards never came into their barracks to harass them or stop their secret prayer meetings. The guards were terrified of the fleas.”

Elias looked around the table at his wife and daughter. “Corrie learned that gratitude isn’t about pretending bad things are good. It’s about trusting that even the worst things can be part of a bigger story if you find a place for them. When you are thankful for the ground you’re standing on, no matter how awful it is, you stop being a victim. You take your power back.”

“When you look at it that way, I guess we should be thankful for what we have and forget about what we’re losing,” Sarah said.

“Losing?” Elias said as if the word was ironic. “Corrie’s story kept getting better. Because of a clerical error, Corrie was released from Ravensbrück just days before all the women her age were sent to the gas chambers. Her sister Betsie died in the camp, but before she died, she told Corrie: ‘There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.’ Corrie took that phrase and built the rest of her life around it. And what a life hers was. Immediately after the war, Corrie returned to the Netherlands and set up a rehabilitation home in Bloemendaal. It was primarily for concentration camp survivors to heal, but in a massive display of her philosophy, she eventually opened the doors to Dutch people who had collaborated with the Nazis and were now outcasts. She believed everyone needed healing. Then she toured the world for 33 years speaking about resilience, gratitude, and radical forgiveness.”

Elias took a deep breath, exhaled slowly to move beyond the emotion, and tapped the legal pad one last time. “That’s what we are doing here today. We’re in a bad chapter. But the book isn’t over. We’re the authors now.”

Mary looked at Elias with a sly smile. “Now, Mr. residential problem solver, what about fixing the leak in our roof!”