From 12
The Big Move
has a good life. A fixed place, family around him, everything familiar. And he's not young anymore.
Then says to him: leave this place. Go to a land I will show you.
No map. No address. No idea how long it takes or what it looks like once he's there. Only that it will be good.
He packs his things. He takes his wife, and his nephew, and everything he owns. And he walks out through the city gate.
What he's leaving behind is certain. What he's walking into is not.
*(Later in the book he's called Abraham. It's the same man; he gets a new name along the way.)*
For today
Does this sound familiar?
The night before your first day at a new school. Or your first practice at a club where you don't know anyone. Your stomach clenches and you want to stay under your blanket until it's over.
And then you go anyway. You cycle over, you park your bike, you walk in. That's the scariest bit: those twenty metres.
Three weeks later you cycle there without even thinking about it. And you can't quite remember what you were so afraid of.
Leave? I don't think so. I'm staying right here and pretending the outside world doesn't exist!
Take a look in the mirror:
- What do you find scariest about something new?
- When did something scary turn out to be totally fine after all?
- What would you do if you knew for certain it would turn out okay?
Mirror line
I'd love to say I just didn't feel like it, but I've learned the scariest part of something new is almost always only twenty metres long.
From 22
Don't Hold On Too Tight
has waited a very long time for a son. Now that is finally here, he means everything to him.
And then asks him the hardest thing there is. He must give up his son.
Abraham says nothing back. He gets up early the next morning, saddles his donkey, and sets off. They walk together for three days. Along the way Isaac asks him something, and Abraham gives an answer that isn't really an answer.
On the mountain, at the very last moment, an angel calls out to him. Stop. Don't touch him.
There's a ram caught in the bushes.
They walk back down together. But nowhere does it say whether they said anything more to each other along the way.
For today
Does this sound familiar?
There's something you really love. A friendship, say. And precisely because you want so badly to keep it, you start acting strange.
You get angry when he plays with someone else for once. You ask for the tenth time whether you're still best friends. You watch who he looks at during break.
And then the strange thing happens: by holding on so tightly, you push him away.
Things work differently than people. The tighter you hold onto a person, the less you have left.
Share him? Absolutely not. I'll hold on so tight no one else gets anywhere near him!
Take a look in the mirror:
- Have you ever held on to someone so tightly that it got uncomfortable?
- How does it feel when someone gives you no room at all?
- What do you think of this story? It's fine to just find it a sad one.
Mirror line
I'd love to keep him all to myself, but I've learned the tighter you hold onto a person, the less you have left.
From 28
The Remarkable Stone
Jacob is on the run from his brother. He tricked him, and now he has to leave.
Night falls and there's nothing around. No village, no house, no one. He lies down in the sand and rests his head on a stone.
And there, on that stone, in the worst bed of his life, he dreams. He sees a staircase reaching from the ground all the way to heaven, with angels going up and down.
When he wakes up, he looks around at the same empty sand as the evening before.
He says: was here, and I didn't know it.
Then he sets that stone upright, gives the place a name — , house of God — and walks on. Later himself gets a new name too: Israel.
For today
Does this sound familiar?
You cycle down the same street every day. You know every paving stone and there's nothing to it.
Until one morning you stop at a spiderweb covered in dew drops, glinting in the sun.
That street was exactly the same yesterday. And the day before. You just weren't looking.
The strange thing is that moments like this usually don't come on the days you feel like having them. They come when you're tired, or late, or grumpy.
Pay attention? Why bother. Nothing special ever happens in a boring place like this!
Take a look in the mirror:
- When did you see something completely ordinary that suddenly looked beautiful?
- What's the most boring place you know? What might you see there if you stood still for a minute?
- What's your stone — a place where something happened that you never forgot?
Mirror line
I'd love to act like I saw nothing special, but I've learned the most ordinary places are sometimes exactly where something important happens.
