My Story

The following is a paper that I wrote in for my Advanced Composition class my Junior year of college. I have gone back through and updated it to some extent. It tells some of the story of how I became a reader and why I want to be a writer. Hope you enjoy!

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My Story

It is impossible to describe my life without stories. In fact, I would propose that stories are the very substance and foundation of each life. After all, our experiences are separate stories that fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Looking back, I see that my life would be quite empty without stories to read or stories to tell.

My dearest memories of stories begin with my father. Almost every night, our family, including my brother Paul and sister Suzanne, would gather together to read from a hardback book that was almost as big as I. It had the words “Character Sketches” engraved in gold letters on its spine and its pages held beautiful, vivid illustrations of animals and lifelike sketches of biblical characters. My dad would read to us about the great horned owl, the meadowlark, the wolverine, and the brown bear, all of which displayed a character quality that we could learn and imitate. Alongside the stories of the animals were Bible stories about people who exhibited the same admirable characteristics as the animals. Mom would be there too, listening and participating along with us as we watched Dad’s face while he read. Listening to my dad as he read from this book helped us to learn that he wanted his children to be strong men and women of character. In every word we heard from Dad, we also perceived the underlying theme of his love for us.

On nights when Dad decided to leave our “Character Sketches” on the shelf, he told us stories instead. He created a plotline about a moose named Mumford who had many friends, including Jeanne the Jaguar, Suzy the Squirrel, and Paul the Puma. The friends would go to an old house whose door creaked as they opened it and then slammed behind them. Dad always used the “creak” and “bang” for emphasis as he told us the story. Once in the house, they walked down the hallway, and as they entered the second door on the right, they would find themselves in a room overflowing with all the costumes needed for any conceivable adventure. Whether the friends decided to be astronauts, ballerinas, or spelunkers, as soon as they had donned the last piece of gear they would disappear into the world of their imagination. We children loved being included in these stories and listening as Dad told us how the troublesome Harry the Hyena would show up and cause a crisis. The trouble was always addressed and sometimes Harry even apologized for what he had done. Once again, these stories were not just meant to be listened to and enjoyed. They were also meant to teach us character and integrity.

Sometimes, after my parents had prayed with us and said goodnight, my dad would read to my sister and me as we fell asleep. I still remember the peace I felt as the light from the hallway shone in my bedroom and I heard him reading from his big red One Year Bible. Falling asleep as he read was a privilege that I treasured. I inherited a deep longing for truth and goodness from my father that I will never be able to relinquish.

It was a family tradition to travel to Grandma’s house every Christmas. Mom, Dad, Suzanne, Paul, and I would all pile in the car and listen to Christmas music as we drove out of Arkansas into Tennessee, and then on into Kentucky. My grandma has lived in the same house for sixty-two years. My dad grew up in that house as the seventh of eight children. The brothers always teased my Aunt Ann because she was the only girl and was, of course, spoiled. Aunt Ann denies this fact to this day, but I have heard enough stories to make me believe otherwise. They grew up simply, my grandma working in a hosiery mill and my granddad working as a mechanic. “Shorty” Lewis was a small man, but he has left a legacy to his grandchildren of integrity and hard work that will not soon be forgotten. He died before I was born, and my dad often says how much he wishes I could have known him.

The old Lewis house has been kept in good shape by Uncle Denny, Uncle Kenny, and Aunt Ann, all of whom still live in the same town as my grandma. On one of our many trips to Grandma’s, Dad took me up into the attic and told me the story of how he used to study up there during high school. There was no heater, so when it was cold he would study under a single light bulb while lying on his belly on a cot with a blanket pulled up to his ears.

Past the small plot of ground that used to be a garden tended by my granddad is the cemetery. Needless to say, the proximity of the cemetery to my grandma’s house made me stay inside after dark. We were not told any ghost stories, but the very thought of that cemetery after dark would put "the fear" in us. My granddad is buried in that cemetery, and now my cousin Mendi also. Visiting their graves is the saddest part of our visits.

Listening to my dad tell me stories about his childhood has given me an appreciation for the past. In fact, I have romanticized it many times, making it more real than today’s reality, a time to be missed. I have often wanted to live in a different time. I love all things old and romantic, including the dresses, language, lace, gloves, and manners. I know that I glamorize it and think of it as an ideal world that, in reality, never existed; but I wish and imagine anyway. This cultivation of my imagination and love for the past has developed into a preference for history as well as historical fiction.

We often entertained people in our home. My dad was an associate pastor at a local Baptist church and, as a result, my parents had many friends. I remember listening to their conversations, just waiting for them to tell an exciting story. Some of them had been to countries all around the world. Others told wonderfully funny stories about their childhood. No matter what the story was, I waded through the uninteresting adult conversation and perked up when I heard a story about to be told. I loved listening and waiting to hear those stories. Sometimes my dad also went on missions trips. I couldn’t wait for him to get home so he could tell me the story of his experiences there.

I guess you could say I learned almost everything I know from my mother. I was home-schooled from kindergarten through sixth grade, and also ninth and tenth grade. Paul, who was ten years older than I, was only home-schooled for one year out of his entire school experience; but Suzanne, who was six and half years older then me, was home-schooled for two years. I am not sure why my parents chose to teach me at home, but I am glad they did. All of my home-schooling years through sixth grade are blurred together, but I remember the way my mother would make her lesson plans and give me my assignments for the day. Everything my mom did was planned out and orderly. I have picked up her knack for organization and her motto “A place for everything and everything in its place.” As I grew older, I needed her constant attention less and often worked on my own, but she organized the lesson plans throughout my education at home.

My mom is also a writer. She has never written stories for a publisher, but she constantly wrote letters to my grandma, to her friends, and to her children. These letters are some of my most prized possessions. Mom would leave letters for every day she and Dad were out of town on a youth trip so that we had something to look forward to while they were gone. She has also written letters to each of her children since before we were born and has given my brother and sister their precious collection of her memories. I am waiting patiently for my letters, but I will probably be kept waiting for a few more years.

I grew up in the Baptist denomination until I was fourteen years old. Dad was a youth pastor and subsequently the young adult and senior adult pastor at our church. Both he and my mother were teachers until the church they attended in Memphis, Tennessee asked him to become their full-time youth pastor. When they moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, once again Dad was asked to be the youth pastor and I was born a few years later. I loved my church and the friends I made there. Because I was home-schooled, most of my friendships were made with other children at church. My parents’ vocation and my strong Baptist background gave me a bent towards the didactic in my writing. Instead of focusing on my own interpretation or an abstract idea, I am more likely to capitalize on the lesson to be learned from what I am reading. As a result, I often attempt, even without realizing it, to incorporate in my writing a lesson I have learned.

Another thing that has impacted the didactic influence in my writing is my choice of books. From the time I was ten or eleven years old I was reading Christian living books by Max Lucado. I enjoyed and was able to connect with his simple but profound style. I also read the Mandie series in which every book tells a story about how Mandie had an adventure and learned how to think before she acted. Once again, the emphasis on applying to life the things read in books influenced my choosing books that did indeed teach a positive lesson.

During my home-schooling, Mom used a curriculum that emphasized grammar much more than creative writing. Because of this, I have a strong grasp of grammar and organization in my writing, but I have a harder time writing poetry or making sure that my distinct voice is heard, simply because I have not had as many opportunities to develop these skills.

My own writing career began when I was about six or seven years old. I wrote a very short story about a woman whose neighbor had just moved in next door. The woman tried to be friendly towards her new neighbor, but the new neighbor seemed distant and unkind. However, after one simple act of kindness the two became friends and the new neighbor invited the woman to come into her house and visit with her. After this humble beginning, I also wrote three short stories about “Angels on Assignment,” who came down to the earth from heaven to help humans. The first installment of this miniseries was a story about a young man who was struggling with healthy relationships with girls and each story involved a different angel who received a mission from “the Chief.” It seems as though I was trying to create an exciting parallel to the process God actually uses to send His angels to protect us. I probably did not come very close to the truth, but this was one more step towards using my imagination to write well.

When I was about nine years old, after my family had watched the movie “Sergeant York,” my sister and I were talking to my dad about what we had just seen. We realized that the movie was based on Sergeant York’s journals, his own telling of his life’s story. Dad said that you never know who will find your journals after you die and make a movie out of them. I distinctly remember that my sister and I jumped up and ran to get our journals right at that moment. At first, I wrote in my journal because it was something new and interesting to do. It soon became a habit and then grew into a necessity. I loved writing my thoughts down on paper, trying to express the inexpressible things that lay inside my heart. Sometimes I wrote about what I had done that day, sometimes I wrote my prayers instead of saying them, and sometimes I poured out my feelings on the pages, hoping that somehow that would help me make sense of them. When I would get impatient or lonely, I would write poems in my journal. They weren’t good poems, but they did help me to express myself and to process what I was feeling.

By the time I entered middle school in Naples, Florida, I knew that I loved to read, but I did not know whether or not I could write well. Needless to say, I was nervous as I walked down the hallways of the church that housed my school, knowing that I was the new girl who did not even know how to unlock her locker. Though I had never been to school before, I adapted well to the small classes and the individual interest that my teachers took in me. My English teacher helped me to see that I could indeed write well. She assigned a group project in which we were to outline the parallels to Christianity in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I had read one or two of the Chronicles of Narnia but had never mined the depths of meaning in them until that point. I fell in love with Narnia immediately and have never fully recovered from the beauty I found there.

The highlight of my middle school writing career involved an essay contest in seventh grade. We were told that we could write one page essays to enter a contest that was being sponsored by the Life Choice pregnancy center in Naples. I wrote my essay under the watchful eye of my English teacher and submitted it, not expecting to gain anything from it. After a while, I was told that we had a dinner to go to, and that it involved the essay I had written. Mom and Dad hinted that I had won first, second, or third place, but they did not tell me which one. When I arrived at the dinner, there on the program was my name – under the title “First Place!” I was shocked and overwhelmed, but extremely excited. This experience birthed in me the desire to write about things that matter to me. I want to write about social issues, not about petty things that have no eternal significance.

When I came to college, it seemed to me that all of the rules had changed and that I was going to have to write better than I had ever written before. This scared me and I was not sure that I would be able to make the grades I wanted in the classes that mattered most to me. My first college English paper was for my Freshman Composition II class. I wrote about images of physical and spiritual death in Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and, just as every writer has a bias, I thought it was fairly well written. When I got my grade back for that paper, I was incredibly disappointed and my insecurities about writing in college were reinforced. However, when I moved on to English Literature I, I was able to write a somewhat creative comparison of Sir Gawain and Lancelot, and not only did I enjoy writing it, but I also got a grade that was more to my liking. Through evaluations of my journal entries, I then learned that I employed a clear writing style that was appreciated by my professors. I had never been given a description of my writing style before, and it was an encouragement to know that there was one specific thing that I did well. The last substantial paper that I wrote was an analysis of Jonathan Edwards for American Literature I. I can honestly say that I worked harder on that paper than any other I had written in college. When I received the grade from my professor, I was so thankful that I was finally beginning to understand what it takes to write well. Though I may have mastered the arts of grammar and organization, I still tend to lack an articulate voice in my writing and I am trying to develop my personal style.

It was not until the middle of my sophomore year of college that I decided to become an English major. I had always loved reading, telling other people about the stories I had read, and maybe even discussing the books with those that shared my love for them. Books allowed me to enter another world and to connect with something that was out of the ordinary. I was drawn into the stories, felt the same emotions being felt by my favorite characters, despised the villain, and cried at the heartache that was part of almost every story. Many times, after I had finished a book that I loved, I wanted it to be close to me. I would make sure that it was easily accessible so that I could thumb through its pages and remember why I loved it so much. Books are indeed like friends that we never lose.

I also enjoyed the beauty I found in the books I read. The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, the Anne of Green Gables series – All of these allowed me to enter into a world more beautiful than my own, and by virtue of their beauty, made my real world glow in the light of the wonder I experienced as I read them. I still read to find this beauty in books. If I find no redemption, no beauty in the books I read, I often do not like them. It must capture my imagination or I become bored. As I read, I try to translate the beautiful fiction I am reading into my present experiences. Most of the time they are difficult to reconcile, but even so, it is worth trying.

I did not always read solely for pleasure. I also read in an effort to improve myself. As I have already mentioned, I read Max Lucado’s books when I was younger and, as I grew older, I immersed myself in other Christian living books. I especially enjoyed books by John Eldredge and C. S. Lewis, as well as various devotional books. I was motivated by a desire to know God more deeply and to live a life that was glorifying to Him.

Before I attended college, I had never explored the importance of literature or the insight that could be gained by analyzing it. I knew that I loved the characters I read about, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to “ruin” the overall effect of the story with too much analysis. However, when I sat in class with the head of English department, it suddenly became clear. He spoke of literature as a conversation in which writers participate in order to answer the Great Questions of their time. Through literature, we find out what matters to people, to a culture. This is one of the reasons I want to be an English major. I want to know the questions being asked and to be able to bring truth into the conversation. The exact ramifications of this decision are not yet within my reach. I may use the skills I learn to be a writer, or perhaps an editor. Or maybe I’ll just be a mom. Who knows? Whatever my future holds, I know that reading and writing will continue to be a vital part of my self-expression and a key to unlocking the passion in my heart.

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