Oh Lord, you are my lamp. The Lord lights up my darkness. 2 Sam 22:29 (NLT)
First Draft – Part 3
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” Anne Lamott.
“The first draft of anything is (crap).” And, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” Ernest Hemingway.
In his book, “On Writing,” Stephen King writes about his re-writing process. His first drafts are shelved, and after a few months, he returns to them and begins to re-write and edit. He may re-write a work 4-5 times before it is complete. It’s rare that an author will publish a book that has not been re-written more than a few times. (I would love to re-write more of what we post here, but time does not permit).
Stories are not just written in one go. There is a first draft, a second… and sometimes a third, a fourth and a fifth. Hemingway rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times, before he was satisfied.
The initial outpouring of words and ideas form the base. In the re-write, characters are refined, excess words and paragraphs weighing the story down are cut, mistakes are corrected and the values and intent of the story take shape. Eventually, the story becomes a work of art. Not because the author's first pen marks were perfect, but because they poured themselves over it day-by-day-by-day until it reached its full potential.
We can live our lives like a first draft until the day we die. Or we can build each day, each new experience and season, on the things we learned yesterday. The first time you experienced betrayal, romantic love, got promoted, failed an exam, received bad news from a doctor, got accepted into college… they are the first draft. Each time you experience these things again, you have an opportunity to re-write how they affect you, and what direction they give your life. There will still be surprises, but you’ll learn (and will continue to learn) how to navigate them in such a way that the values, message and purpose of your life will be refined and complimented through them, not diminished by them.
And that’s only what we can do on our own.
David’s life should have looked different to how it did. He could have chosen the life of a worshipper instead of a warrior. He could have turned away when he saw Bathsheba on the rooftop. He could have defended his daughter when she was raped… He could have done so many things differently. And then again, if it wasn’t for the divine interrupting his shepherding, we may not have ever heard of David at all. The one thing that David seemed to do consistently was open his heart to God. However, not even in this was he perfect. But perfection is not the point, showing up is. And he did. As he lived his life an open book before the Divine – all of it, the first draft moments, the bad phrasing, the mistakes, the extra words, the pride, the unbearable and unmentionable sins, his suffering and pain and confusion, the triumphs and victories… God helped him re-write his life. It’s not about changing the past, but re-aligning your feet moving forward.
Brené Brown says, “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.”
When we try to cover up, shrug off, or ignore the stories at play in our lives, we will always live in first draft mode. But when we own them, take responsibility for them; when we listen to our lives, we get to set the course for the days and months and years to come.
And when God is writing our story with us; when the Infinite is in the ink and the paper and the pen of our life's story, then both the journey and the ending (which is only a new beginning) will be nothing short of miraculous.
Go to Part 4 – Sins Rewritten
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