preface, maybe Intro, but not quite chapter 1

So i don't know when He actually placed his hands on my shoulders...but I know I remember the shaking and the waking up, and the tears and the pain and the fear and the peace I felt all at the same time. I've never been so shaken in my life. where I feel it in my gut, and my heart and my bones and everywhere I looked. My eyes have never been so sore, my throat so dry, my heart so empty. I was sleeping. I was wondering in absolutly nothingness. He placed his hands on each of my shoulders and shook me so hard I didn't know if the earth was moving or just my world. I didn't know where my feet were. I couldn't catch my breath. He shook me, and I woke up.

My creater woke me.

I'm starting on a journey. I need to be a part of a story. Something bigger than myself. I read a book by Donald Miller and that's all he talked about, being a part of something bigger than me. A challenge. I'm a charcter in a story... and right now, my story is meaningless. What am I doing? I wake up around 11, piddle around the house, get ready and go to work. Come home, sleep then repeat. Until recently, I wasn't even allowing the creater of me be a part of my story. I've learned a lot from Don (i like to pretend i know him).

God woke me up. he said "LOOK AT ME! INVITE ME INTO YOUR STORY! LET ME BE YOUR STORY! I CREATED YOUR STORY AND EVERY PLACE AND CHARACTER IN IT!"

Then I felt bad for a while.

But now, I'm trying to get up off my ass and want to start a new greater story.

Creator is one of my main characters this time. And I see Him everywhere.
I see him in this coffee shop I go to almost everyday. I saw him there today in a hug between two people. I don't know them, and I wasn't being creepy, but I saw Him in that hug. It was a good hug. I wish I could have taken a picture and given it to them.
I see Him in my dogs, Maximus and Mayer, when they make me laugh at least once a day. And how they love. Oh they have so much love.
I see Him in my husband.
I see Him in my friend at work when he is BEEMING, grinning from ear to ear when he talks about his 9 children...yes 9. He is so in love.
He's a part of my daily life and He's stretching me to become more.

I belive all the way down, deep in my bones that God created me on purpose. And you too. I think He wrote us into this BIG story yet gave us a pen and is allowing us to write it as we want. I know I have sloppy handwritting, just ask my boss... but I was allowing that sloppyness into my life. I was taking advantage of having control over that pen. I think I just set it down and let the paper get a little old and yellow-y. I wasn't doing anything. Ive been stagnant and wayy too comfortable.

Don wrote:
"If i have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story and put is in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you....
...We don't want to be characters in a story becasue characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable then we dont have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants."

Now, I'm reading a book by Steven James, conviniently, titled "Story." I read this a few years ago but it had no affect on my life, but this time it's shoving me around like trying to fit crayons in their box.
He wrote:
"the text of my life is in need of editing.
enter between the lines,
pick up the pen of your love,
let your majesty engulf my heart,
rewrite me.

reveal yourself to me
even if it means that
i must disappear
into you.

inversion."

OK! OK! OK! I get it!

So here's where I am. I'm going to write a new, better story...I'm going to try anyway. I still have awful handwriting, I'm just going to try not to let it affect how I write this time... at least keeping the pen in my hand. After all, the more I write the better it will get...right?
now that's a freakin' loaded statement...