Day 5: Living the Adventure – a Mini Memoir – Using the Rear View Mirror

The open road adventure of re-framing my past and rewriting my future

By: Susan Deborah Schiller

Do you ever wonder if you're really accomplishing what you're here on earth to do? Have you ever just wanted to loosen the shackles of Time, Schedule, and the Comfort of mindless routines?

For me, slowing down to simply "be" instead of running, rushing, racing to do what "needs" to be done, is a time when I discover where my story fits into God's story.

It took me many years to realize I had been doing it all wrong.

I believe that God is the author of my life, and so I dutifully prayed and waited patiently for Him to prosper me and to cause me to succeed. One of the popular Bible verses we quote is in Jeremiah 29:11:

I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

What I didn't understand until recently is that faith is active; not passive.

God wants us to join with Him in co-authoring our stories.

It's like using the rearview mirrors to know where you've come from while facing forward, into the Light, so you can see clearly to plan your next steps.

If you don't use the rearview mirror, you might miss something barreling up behind you – something that could be avoided if you simply looked backward, regularly and systematically.

Re-framing our past occurs when we use the rearview mirror to face the most important memories of our past and view them through Heaven's eyes.

It's like seeing through the mist of Mystery, because none of us really sees clearly yet. And so we learn to ruthlessly trust.

Once our memory is re-framed we're ready to prophetically sow it into our future, as an investment. When your story is re-framed, you are speaking God's Word into your future, and that's the Word that creates your world!

Nothing happens by chance. Nothing changes unless we change.

Just now, as I'm writing this, a friend updated her status on Facebook, telling a story of how her daughter broke her cell phone, and that it would cost $175 to replace, even under warranty. My friend says, "This always happens everytime we finally get on our feet. We get these random, scary extra expenses that are completely overwhelming…"

On our journey – this life adventure – we're going to reframe situations that put our story on pause. They stand out, usually, as unwelcome guests, because they slow us down.

A reocurring problem, like a buffalo in the road, is meant to cause you to stop, to ponder, to look deeply until you come to the root of that theme.

Sometimes a story is what we need to loosen the shackles of Time so that we can reframe our past and rewrite our future.

Your activation for Day 5 is to jot down a list of memories you need to reframe. We want your mini memoir to be as positive and uplifting as possible, and in order to rewrite ourselves into a better future, we need to glance back at the past. In "Innocence Restored" we embraced the missing parts of ourselves that represent all that is good and positive in our lives.

Today, we're going to look at all that wasn't so good… but don't worry, when seen through God's eyes of fiery Love, even negatives are turned into positives. That is grace!

My own grace story is recorded at "Mission Impossible" and it's intended as a sample, to show you how something empowering and beautiful can come out of even the worst tragedies. It takes time to write these stories, to see your life history from a fresh perspective… so be prepared for this activation to take a few days. Don't try to do it all at once, unless you really want to.

As for me, this is the "good" I cultivated from Mission Impossible:

"Sometimes we ask ourselves, "What are we doing wrong?" We have dreams, goals, ideas, and places we want to explore, but obstacles keep popping up to derail us.

When I look backward at one of the biggest themes of my life, this so-called "Mission Impossible" theme, I recall God's words to me: "Nothing is impossible… put your faith, feeling, and focus into it. It will come to pass."

Faith + Feeling + Focus = It will come to pass.

I not only survived; I learned to thrive.

I don't have all the answers. There are no magic formulas to survive trauma. All I know is that when you face the impossible with Faith + Feeling + Focus, what you hope for will come to pass.

Faith is active, not passive. What you focus on is empowered. Our feelings are electrical – they have power. We can harness the energy of our feeling, and focus that energy – like a laser beam – with the promises of God, right into the heart of the Impossible Thing.

Maybe God gives us the "Mission Impossible" because He wants to rules in the midst of our enemies. Maybe He gives us these adventures because in learning to survive against all odds, we step into the realm of thriving – and that gives Him glory!

By the way, if you're like me, you've got lots of memories to reframe. Don't get stuck for too long in this leg of the journey. Just one or two memories of this kind at a time is plenty. You can always revisit this section later and add to it!

Imagine: What if telling our story, using God's word and promises, BECOMES THE PRAYER, the written transcript that rewrites our future!

Writing a mini-memoir has been an instrument to harness the energy, for me. It's helped to heal my heart, to bring peace out of a nightmare, and order from chaos. It's my gift to you, in joining me on the adventure.

Living the adventure and choosing love today,

Sue

PS I'd love to hear from you! How is writing your mini memoir coming along for you? How are you feeling about it? Can you relate one of your stories in the comment section or send it to me privately via email? I read all comments and respond to all email, even if it takes me a few days! I'll be back in four days with the next activation, but don't worry if it takes longer than that to complete your previous activations. It's really good, actually, to stick stories on the back burner and return to them, fresh, later!

Susan Schiller knows how it feels to lose everything: marriage and family, church and reputation, finances and businesses, and more. Susan's upcoming, interactive memoir, "On the Way Home," tells the story of how she came to be known as "the most abused woman" her counselors had yet met and how she learned to navigate her way out of hell to a rich and satisfying life. In her lifetime, Susan has served in duties ranging from home school mom – to pastor –  to full-time deliverance minister – and to Midwest regional prayer coordinator for a large international ministry. These days you can usually find Susan soaking in her favorite hot springs pool, reading a book (or several), blogging, baking bread, or hanging out with her family and friends. You can get a free copy of Susan's upcoming book, "On the Way Home" by registering here.

Copyright 2010-2014, Susan Schiller, http://TeamFamilyOnline.com. For reprint permission for any private or commercial use, in any form of media, please contact Susan Schiller.