Storyline Fall 2020

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Failure “Do you love Me?” John 21:15 You might know a series of books authored by ‘Lemony Snicket’ (the pen name for Daniel Handler) and published some 20 years ago. The series of 13 books called A Series of Unfortunate Events was classified under the genre of children’s fiction and was the source of some controversy amongst parents and teachers. Handler told the story of 3 orphaned children, Violet, Klauss, and Sunny Baudelaire, whose parents died in a fire, following which they were faced with fierce persecution at the hands of a distant relative, Count Olaf. The children suffered through repeated tragedy, including near death on several occasions. Some people could not understand why Handler would subject his young audience to such dark and violent themes, but the series went on to receive much success including its adaptation into a movie and Netflix series. Handler’s extreme approach of exposing children to the reality of hardship, persecution, wickedness, and death expressed his attempts to not conform to what he called “the lily-liveredness of children’s books” 1 ; Handler wrote the book he wished he could have read when he was 10. 2 I remember being hesitant myself as a parent to allow my children to read those books. There are definitely places we would all rather not go or even imagine, talk less of allowing our children to imagine. I am always reminded that Jesus did not sugarcoat life for His disciples; sometimes He took them or allowed them to be taken to places they would rather not go. It was guaranteed, however, that when Jesus called them to places that were new, and sometimes unwanted, He always had a better plan for them, a plan to prosper them and produce fruit in them that was better than they could have ever imagined. In reality, every Christfollower must be prepared for such turns in the journey. My story is about such a time in my life when my journey took me on a path I preferred not to imagine, let alone travel. Not Good Enough For as long as I can remember, success was always very important to me. As a child I had a mental image of a successful person, and that’s what I wanted to be. Incidentally, it did not play out as a need to win and I did not 14
enjoy competing with other people. Rather, I had big hopes and dreams, and could be described as ambitious. I had high expectations which I placed on myself but hardly ever met. As far as I was concerned, every unsuccessful attempt to meet my expectations counted as a personal failure – just not good enough. It did not take me long to compile my dossier of personal failures, and it just kept growing.
Page 1 and 2: 20 Identity Storyline magazine Fall
Page 3 and 4: content 06 Desire Julie McPhail 10
Page 5 and 6: the church
Page 7 and 8: While maybe not as much as in decad
Page 9 and 10: us about how big our God is and how
Page 11 and 12: I can remember sitting one day thin
Page 13: faith had been propped up by all ki
Page 17 and 18: work with which I was consumed. We
Page 19 and 20: 1The Lord is my shepherd, I lack no
Page 21 and 22: “What's your name?” Luke 8:30 f
Page 23 and 24: ness “Why should you get credit?
Page 25 and 26: We were told that we needed to get
Page 27 and 28: I never understood how people could
Page 29 and 30: ever felt like God was trying to ge
Page 31 and 32: Honouring Pastor Ray Matheson Give
Page 33 and 34: Ray. He is wise beyond words, he is
Page 35 and 36: Ray Matheson has poured out his ent
Page 37 and 38: Heather Wile: Hi, James. James Pato
Page 39 and 40: way that I’d never experienced be
Page 41: gives the doctors the skills. But p
Page 44 and 45: to decide what to do. In the end I
Page 46 and 47: to let it go - even though He knows
Page 48 and 49: Provision “How much do you have?
Page 50 and 51: I prayed to keep my heart grounded
Page 52 and 53: of my calling to mobilize our churc

Storyline Fall 2020

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