If You Knew My Story …

The first words you hear in Bright Star are Alice Murphy’s. She sings:

If you knew my story
You’d have a hard time
Believing me, you’d think I was lying
Joy and sorrow never last
I’ll die trying not to live in the past

The show then proceeds to tell us about her life, past and present in the 1920s and the 1940s. It is a forwards and backwards story that gives the teenage context to the story the now 40-year-old woman is still living out.

Forwards and backwards. We all live this kind of a life. Joys and sorrows deep in the past set the context for how we live in the present. We can easily get mired in simply trying not to live in the past, but pain and regret are powerful. In the midst of that, we can learn something from Alice Murphy. The first word of that song is IF. If her story stopped with that word and never got to the telling, there would be no Bright Star. It doesn’t stop there – it tells the whole thing, all of it. Isn’t that why we choose to see plays, musicals, movies, televisions show? The stories.

Story is at the core of the human experience. From the earliest moments of our lives, we are interested in stories. However, we often miss the most important one – our own. We live in a spirit of comparison and discount what we have to tell. Years ago, I wrestled with this. Three friends and I had gone to Africa to lead some women’s retreats focused on spiritual storytelling. The morning before I was going to share my own story, I remember feeling doubts and nearly giving in to thoughts that I had nothing to say to these women. I cried out to God because I knew I was stuck – I had to follow through with the speaking. I distinctly remember hearing the question, “Is this the story I gave you?” I couldn’t deny that it was. Then followed, “Then that is the one you are to tell.”

Dan Allender says, “If we come to know our own story and then give it away, we will discover the deepest meaning in our lives. We will discover the Author who is embedded in our story and we will know the glory he has designed for each of us to reveal.”

I hope you will take the opportunity to learn Alice Murphy’s backwards and forwards story by seeing Bright Star this summer. I hope even more deeply that it will inspire you to consider and tell your own story.

Melanie Leach