If someone wanted to tell your story

Last week, a great literary hero of mine, David Halberstam, was killed in a car accident in the San Francisco area. He was being driven by a journalism student at the time and was on his way to deliver a speech to students. Undoubtedly in the car on the way over, he was already sharing wisdom, listening intently, and telling stories. Just things he was always famous for doing.

Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his work covering Vietnam, also had a passion for sports and chose to write about them later in his career. He wrote books about football, basketball, and also three of the finest baseball books ever written. His book The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship is one of my favorite books I have ever read, and I have had countless conversations about this book with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers. I stayed up until one in the morning one night watching a documentary about this book on ESPN Classic. I love discussing it's powerful story and the journey it takes the reader on and the humbleness with which it is written. Let me give you a brief and hopefully adequate explanation of the book.

It is October 2001, and, amidst everything that is going on in the country, old friends got in the car together to make a 1,300 mile trip to Florida to see their mutual friend who is slowly dying.

Dom Dimaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams were all teammates for 10 years on some great Boston Red Sox teams in the 1940's. In that time, they came to be the closest of friends, learning from each other and sharing with each other their thoughts on hitting, fishing, girls, the future, or anything else an old ballplayer talks about. Years down the road, Williams inevitably became very ill, and it was clear he would not make it much longer. So the other guys piled in the car to go see him for what, they knew, would be the last time.

Their short journey in the car became a metaphor for the journey they had taken the last 60 years of their lives. They had grown together, lived together, traveled together, won together, and lost together. But in all those times and over 60 years, their friendship never changed. And now they were losing one of their own.

For many people in the public eye, we have authors like Halberstam to record their stories, and they do it with eloquence and grace that few of us can match. But what about your life? What about my life? How would it read if someone were to write your story near the end of your life?

Would you be seen as a great friend? Someone who was compassionate? Someone who people desperately wanted to be around because of the comfort you gave to everyone: the accepted and the marginalized?

Truthfully, your story is being written every day of your life. In your conversations, in your actions, in your reactions to struggles, pages upon pages are being written on the hearts of everyone around you. They are learning about your past, witnessing your present, and predicting your future.

Does your story reflect a life you want them to have? Does your story portray the great freedom that we can offer people through Christ?

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.....

Our lives, unveiled and stripped down for all to see, just a like a great book would be, are on display for everyone. When we are living a story pleasing to God, we reflect Him and His freedom.

And, just like the four teammates were transformed over 60 years from rough-edged young ballplayers to loyal, honest men, so we too are being transformed with God and in God.

So, may the story you are writing be one of excitement, intrigue and happiness. But, more importantly, may it be a great novel that others study and investigate and wonder how so much meaning and fulfillment can fit in just a few short pages of life. God is co-authoring with you, and with you, he wants to write a masterpiece. A story that will reflect you, and one that will reflect Him.

Ryan