"She thought"

How would it be if my life were a book? A moving piece of literature breathed in and out by an author who narrated the script of my mind and thoughts. A bore, a comedy, a life examined? I switched off the lamp next to my bed a few nights ago, only to be struck by the silliest narration of thought:


"And she would surrender to fatigue, but for thoughts that keep her away from sleep, which comes so voluntarily to most."


Me: Uh, hello? Imagination, was that you? A commentary on myself in the third person. Is that allowed?


Clearly, I've indulged in too much fiction.


Non-fiction has always seemed to carry the purest kind of truth. It's honest from the start: no shadowy characters to dechiper, plan and simple, traceable fact. I am a journalist for a reason.


As it turns out, with fiction I am lately enamored. Pages unfurl in beautifully crafted details and characters teeming with all the freedom of embellishment; my soul churning with a satisfaction that could only be met by fantasy.


I have settled into the idea that it is not fiction's job to define truth, rather, to exist because there is truth. Fiction is the counterpart to fact: the backlighting of reality. Shadow illuminates and enriches life, but does not tell the whole story.


Like the black and white prints of Ansel Adams, contrast provides meaning. It opens the mind for some truths readers are not ready to accept in plain sight. Such truths must be communicated with the guile of an active imagination. They must fly under the radar of our defense mechanisms and be weathered patiently with characters. Only then will the author accomplish his goal, to prod at our weaknesses and possibly reveal hidden strengths.


If ever the world were more than what we see, it is with fiction's help that the reader gains the "eyes to see." A temporary suspension of what we already know about things, to accept the possibility of something more.


Like all fiction has an author, so do I. Once just a plot before the lines were written, my days were as the Psalmist proclaims:


"And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."


And He will be my author and perfector, the One who the grave could not hold. He who said "It is finished," will reserve those words for the heightened penstroke of my final breath.


Of His work in me the postscript will read: "Surely, Lauren, I have made new."


Should I think the narration of my thoughts so unbelievable after all? It is His breath I borrow, in His spirit I abide and the workmanship of His hand on which I tread.


He is the fact beyond the fiction of these shadowlands and dim-lit mirrors into which we discern truth. These things will pass away as promised, into the full light of eternity.


"There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever." Revelation 22:5


Until then, morning and night, sleeping and waking as my pages turn.


"And the next moment she knew of, dawn broke through her eyelids..."