Donald Miller is my literary crush

Donald Miller is, well...he's brilliant. In his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (which I super highly recommend), he says, "You become the people you interact with. And if your friends are living boring stories, you probably will too. We teach our children good or bad stories, what is worth living for and what is worth dying for, what is worth pursuing, and the dignity with which a character engages his own narrative."

See? Brilliant!

That single comment made the book worth the purchase. It's helped solidify my opinion that my life - every single moment - teaches my daughter something. I'm a firm believer that behavior is a form of communication, and when I stop in an attempt to grasp the fact that my mouth only communicates about 20% of what I'm saying, I'm blown away. I can speak words of love, respect, forgiveness, kindness, and/or mercy but until I act out those behaviors, I'm done for. Nothing I've just said with my mouth is truth. And that hurts. It's made me think about what Lauren, my daughter, must think when I tell her that I love her and then wave her out of the kitchen because I'm cooking dinner and she's in the way.

Ouch.

Miller also tells the story of Jason and how he saved his family. Jason's 13 year old daughter had weed in her room, was dating a guy who was disrespectful, and was just generally dancing around the start of a bad path. Miller shares something similar to the earlier quote with Jason and something ignited for Jason. At the end of the chapter, Jason says this about his daughter's transformation: "She broke up with her boyfriend last week. [...] No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her. She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while."

Know what made the difference? Know what reminded her of who she is? Jason figured out that he hadn't mapped out a story for his family. As a result, his daughter was creating a story for herself, a story that available to her and contained all the elements of a good story: mystery, intrique, risk, excitement, independence, rebellion. When Jason realized that his behavior communicated a story to his daughter, and that her behavior communicated a story to the rest of the world, he quickly changed the story. I won't tell you how (buy the book), but I will tell you that it makes complete and perfect sense to me.

I've always sorta thought that the characters make the story, and in a good story, that's probably true. But in a great story, the story makes the characters. I mean, life is what shapes and molds us and makes us who we are, not the other way around. So, how can I honestly expect Lauren to develop her character in isolation? If I'm not doing all that I can to create a story in which she not only is expected to have a lead, but one in which she wants to star, how in the world can I expect her to develop into the character she is supposed to be?

Does any of that make sense?