As a young girl, I spent many afternoons after school sitting in my grandparent’s caravan, sipping milky sweet tea, and dunking biscuits. The challenge was to dunk those biscuits just long enough to soften them, without them landing in the bottom of my teacup. Pop needed to dunk his biscuits for lack of teeth. I did it because he let me.
Nan made the pot of tea; brewed with tea leaves and freshly boiled rainwater. She also stocked up on those dunking ‘bikkies’ every pension day shop. Arnott’s, I recall; Scotch fingers and Gingernuts.
My Pop was a storyteller. He loved to yarn about his childhood and his working days, along with stories of farms and family. He listened to my stories as well and answered my many questions. My grandparents gave me the gift of belonging to a bigger story- our family’s story.
I never got to hear stories from my Dad’s parents. Grandad died before I was born, Grandma died when I was nine. It wasn’t until later in life that my Dad would tell me stories about Grandma, and his childhood. Books printed for family reunions, told stories of my German and Protestant ancestry, giving me a larger framework to understand the stories of this side of my family.
Michael Jensen says storytelling is the impulse that lies deep within human cultures, to the point that it is almost fundamental to the very concept of our culture itself. We belong to bigger stories than just our own. Both the bigger story and our own stories help us create meaning.
I have a friend who is adopted. She has never heard stories from her biological grandparents or birth mother. I do not understand what that is like. She has very few stories of her birth, her abandonment, and little opportunity to gain another perspective.
Gaining another perspective involves hearing another’s story. This is helpful to reframe some of our own negative stories and can bring new meaning and healing. For over forty years, I believed a story that I said I was not lovable. This story was based on fragmented memories of abandonment. It was not until decades later, when my mother told me another story, that I realised my version of the story was incomplete.
I have found journaling helpful to reframe some of my stories. Often, I get stuck on one grievance or perspective and cannot get past my story of hurt and disappointment. By asking different questions of my day, or year or season, I inevitably end up with a reframed version of my story. I will often ask myself, what do I have to be grateful for, what have I learned, and what is God saying to me in this? Questions like these help me to gain a different perspective, and brings deeper meaning to the stories of my life.
As a Christian, I believe I belong to a bigger story; and this grand story helps me make sense of both the beauty and the brokenness of my life, and the world I live in. When I view my life through Jesus Christ, all the little stories of my life have purpose and meaning.
One day, I hope to tell stories to my grandchildren, just like my Pop did all those years ago. I hope that I can share a little of the bigger story with them, so that they may know a sense of belonging as well. I want to serve them tea and bikkies, and listen to their stories too.
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