The Lord will work out his plans for my life—
for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.
Don’t abandon me, for you made me. – Psalm 138:8

So that was fun. Thursday lunchtime I got to spend an hour with the good folk at the Tarboro Rotary Club, eating lunch and sharing a few thoughts as their program for the day.

My friend Johnathan Cobb was kind enough to invite me to speak, and even kinder to ask me to talk about my memoir, Grace Upon Grace: one million decisions. So what I focused on was not just my memoir but the remarkable stories that all of us have and how beneficial it can be when we see our lives through the lens of story.

Over the course of human history more than 100-billion of us have at one time or another lived on this planet. What is more remarkable is that there has never been anyone like you before, and there never will be again. Of course, as I pointed out during my talk, some of us are more unique than others!

Your story, then, is absolutely worth knowing and worth sharing.

Understanding our life as a story gives us a deeper and more expansive appreciation of 1) The time we have already lived, 2) The moment we now occupy, and 3) What is still possible.

I think the most important idea I wanted people to take away with them was that of identifying the unifying threads that run through our lives. In my case that has been the beautiful and unremitting grace of God – and now as I view my life through that lens I discover even more grace, “Grace Upon Grace” as the title suggests.

This begs the questions, what story is your life telling? Do you feel like the story is going anywhere? Are there any plot twists to come? What would you like to see happen next?

I thought about this walking from our home in the historic district and making my way through the town square, along Main Street and over to the Barclay House for the luncheon.

It was such a beautiful October day to stroll through this small town we have adopted as home and that has adopted us. So what would I like to see happen next? Well, this is what is happening next. We may be retired but we are in Tarboro now, and my prayer is that Rebekah and I will be able to follow our presence here like footprints in time, leaving traces of grace upon grace from day to day.

As, “the Lord [continues to] work out his plans for our life… for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.” – DEREK