October 23, 2014 by Erin

The Stories Are True

I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. If I’m honest, I’ve sort of always been thinking of getting a tattoo; I’ve just never had an idea for words or symbols that I would want to mark myself permanently with. (Also, I’m horribly afraid of needles.) But, over the last few weeks, a phrase has emerged that I know I will need to be reminded of again and again over the course of my life.

I’ve seen a lot of darkness in the last month, and I’ve had to come to terms with a horrible, inescapable truth: the world is a dangerous place, and no one is safe. Not me, not my friends or family, not even my precious, innocent nieces and nephew. We all live in a world under siege, and the very air we breathe is hostile. Just waking up in the morning is entering a great battle.

In the West, we forget all of this sometimes. Because we don’t live with literal guns pointed at our heads, we forget just how much danger we’re in. We inoculate ourselves into a false sense of security, but pain inevitably wakes us up at some point. Pain—our universal companion. Not one of us can go through life without feeling it, even if some of us know more pain than others.

But there’s more going on here. It’s not just that life sucks and shit happens. Sometimes it becomes clear that we are under attack. Senseless violence, rape, starvation, pandemics—these cannot be accidents. There is something willful behind all this, something bent on causing our ruin, if not by outright crippling us with suffering, then by scaring us into trudging through life with our heads down.

It’s no surprise that most fairy tales begin this way: a world plunged into darkness, a people enslaved, an evil oppressor. Most of us lived and breathed these tales when we were young, whether it was books or Disney movies or video games. The worlds of our imaginations were fraught with peril. But just as we understood the danger, we also understood there was always an improbable hope. There was always a hero, even if he was unlikely. Somehow light found its way into the darkness, and goodness and beauty won the day. What strikes me about these stories is how inevitable this outcome felt. Of course good would triumph over evil. We all knew the end of the story, even in the scariest moments.

But then we grew up, and most of us fell either into denial or despair. We live in a safe, sanitized world where nothing very exciting happens, or we are overcome by the senselessness and pain we see and feel. I for one vacillate between the two, sometimes daily. Either way, those stories we loved, the stories of real and terrible evil and of a more real and powerful good, those stories cannot be true.

When we live there, between denial and despair, the Gospel sounds like complete gibberish. It’s been snidely called a fairy tale, and not unfairly. This thing I say I believe—this story of a Man coming out of an unlikely village, spreading light through an evil kingdom, saying he wants to rescue us, and, when all seemed lost, beating death and proving he was actually God in the flesh—it sounds eerily like those stories we know are not true. And it’s not just the accounts of Jesus’ life. The whole Bible is basically a collection of far-flung tales of men and women risking their lives for a kingdom we cannot begin to understand. We read about fish swallowing men, fire falling from the sky, beasts with myriad eyes bent on destruction, and a Warrior King who rescues his beloved. Christians are basically people wandering around telling stories. Bards with tales to entertain, and maybe to instruct. But can they be believed?

I cannot always tell you why or how, but I have staked my life on one seemingly impossible thought: the stories are true.

I believe they are true because I’ve been convinced by the evidence. The darkness I mentioned before, wars and famines and heartbreak, those are undeniable facts. But I’ve also seen, with my own eyes, goodness and beauty that can heal the deepest hurt. People often wonder how there can be a God when there is so much evil, but I think there is a better question: how can there be any good? In a world so broken, how can there be such a thing as a sunrise? Where does beauty come from? How do you explain love? Just as something about the pain around us feels like a willful attack, the goodness around us feels as if it were on purpose.

I believe the stories of a world overrun by evil are true. I believe the stories of an unlikely hero who rescues his fellows and restores hope are true. And I believe the stories of a better country where tears become crowns are true.

I forget sometimes, so I think I may want a tattoo to remind myself that even though the world is a dangerous place, there is something more real even than the darkness. Something to remind me to be strong and courageous, and to keep fighting even when all seems lost. Something that speaks to the beauty I can feel in my very bones. And if there is one phrase I want to mark me for the rest of my life, it is this:

The stories are true.