On Moving the Story Forward

To the casual observer, the yellow dish on my shelf does not mean much.

It is handmade. Simple. Sun-warmed in color. The kind of thing you might pass in a thrift store without a second thought.

It was mine once.
Then I gave it to my friend Nicole.
And after she was killed in a car accident twenty-two years ago, it came back to me.

It sits on my shelf now—not as closure, but as a memory. Something given, held, then returned. A small, ordinary object that carries a story.

This week, our mutual friend Lara stood in chapel at Valpo, where we went to college, and talked about Nicole. Outside that chapel is a labyrinth built in Nicole’s memory. Last fall, a student newspaper article told the story behind the labyrinth. Students who never knew Nicole asked questions that led to more people hearing her story. What began as grief held by those who loved her has, over time, become something shared by community.

In a world that tries to sanitize grief and reduce tragedy to headlines, there is something holy about that. About letting a story breathe. About listening long enough to understand that a life cannot be summarized in a single sentence.

There is a holiness in curiosity—and in listening to someone’s heavier story.

Earlier this year, I heard author Michael Connelly reflect on his writing practice. He spoke about the discipline of writing every day. But what struck me was that his goal isn’t a word count or writing for a set amount of time. It’s simply to move the story forward.

Move the story forward each day.

Honoring a story requires patience. So does living one.

On the days when the pressure to produce or accomplish feels heavy, “move the story forward” feels like grace. Not finish it. Not prove anything. Not resolve every loose end. Just take one meaningful step.

What if the measure of a day wasn’t how much we completed, but whether we nudged the story forward one day at a time?

Nicole’s story did not end with a car accident. It continues in a labyrinth on a university campus. In a chapel reflection shared years later. In the curiosity of students asking questions. In a yellow dish on a shelf.

Stories move forward in ways we do not always see.

Maybe faithfulness looks less like achieving and more like tending. Less like accomplishment and more like attention. Less like headlines and more like listening.

We carry stories.
We are living stories.
And each day, whether we notice or not, we are shaping what comes next.

What might change if we trusted that moving the story forward—however slightly—is enough?

And where might that lead us?