Keep storytelling golden
By Hannah Hunhoff, student reporter
Racing down the mud-caked steps of the school bus in my floral backpack, my eight-year-old self bolted up my driveway and busted through my front door with a stack of an assortment of golden yellow, green, hot pink and orange notes in my hands.
These weren’t just any kind of notes but were called “Sunshine Notes” as my second-grade teacher Mr. Clinton dubbed them. “Sunshine Notes” were vehicles of encouragement–penned with personable, heartfelt words from students and addressed to classmates. The ones I delivered were sealed with glitter and some stickers. My large-print penmanship also wasn’t complete without a few cursive letters, colored in hearts and peace signs.
Talking 100 miles per minute, as usual, I read out each Sunshine Note like a television host on Good Morning America to my patient mother, who promised to stack them away in my special folder and keep them forever. I also brought a stack of empty sunshine notes home, as I couldn’t help but share more words of kindness with my friends and family the following morning.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I love you so much! Thank you for helping me with my math homework. I love you more than… cotton candy, more than fish love water, any candy and any toys! I love you more than anything!
Your outstanding girl,
Hannah
After school, I was found creating countless handmade story booklets–fairytales, make-belief scenarios, and family member profiles–and stored them all in a plaid Tommy Hilfiger shoe box that was decorated with puffy Valentine’s day stickers and large red, purple and yellow bubble letters that spelled out my name.
I used up nearly 99% of my family’s printing paper, as my mom got into a routine of helping me staple and carefully fold a blank story booklet: my creative canvas of endless possibilities.
Words truly do create worlds.
A drawn picture book called “Pam’s Pink Gum” with blue and pink confetti and morsels of Hubba Bubba bubble gum smack dab on the cover. A four-page essay called “Unknown Princesses Finding their Way,” which was about a set of triplets named Amelia, Natasha and Tara, who were separated at birth and lived in another dimension called Tysionlita: a magical world where anything could happen. A personal bound notebook full of an autobiography on my beloved childhood author, Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Beginning in kindergarten, my mom would encourage me to write a personal diary entry about my day in a “My days…my writing booklet.” Within this little booklet, I told stories about seemingly mundane moments in life.
November 4 Journal Entry: If you have flown in an airplane, tell about it.
I chew gum on the airplane because if you don’t, your ears will pop. When I am in an airplane, sometimes I see the staff below.
There are so many stories I can’t wait to share with her over a cup of tea in heaven one day.
My love for writing and storytelling was no surprise to my parents, as it ran in my blood. My my great-grandmother Margaret, wrote a monthly column called Grandma’s Scrapbook for the Yankton County Observer and authored a book of poetry called “Seventh Son” in 2001–the year I was born. Alongside my parents’ living room bookshelf full of Christian classics, my uncle Bernie’s publication, South Dakota Magazine, was normally in sight.
While my great-grandmother Margaret passed away in 2019 and never got to read my first paper publication, Rain or Shine: Welcome Week 2021, my dad told me that “she would be so proud.” There are so many stories I can’t wait to share with her over a cup of tea in heaven one day.
Every Thursday, Mr. Clinton would pass around a basket full of all the names in my second-grade class, instructing each student to write a Sunshine Note assigned to the name they drew. The next 30 minutes were delegated as writing time. There was nothing like hearing the sound of mechanical pencils hitting the page of an empty Sunshine Note.
Mr. Clinton was one teacher who saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself…
I told Hannah K. that I was excited that we were neighbors and that we were name twins. I told Hailey B. that she was my favorite person to play hide and seek with during recess.
Mr. Clinton was one teacher who saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself, as I discovered in reading his note in the book and my high school graduation gift, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Suess.
Your heart is full of good things that you can’t wait to share with others. You have certainly taken Sunshine Notes to a whole new level. I pray that you will continue to embrace, express and cultivate the unique qualities that God has given you.
This version of storytelling was truly golden because it taught me to not only mine the gold in others but in the world around me. As the months went on, I began to fill Sunshine Notes with stories and anecdotes of birthday parties, recess memories and lunchtime jokes.
When I wasn’t writing sunshine notes, I curled up in my butterfly blanket, devouring pages of a Nancy Drew mystery book–losing myself in the rich pages of an unraveling mystery and adding more library books to an ongoing list in my head. What captivated my heart and mind even more was skimming through the onion-thin pages of my Jesus Storybook Bible.
Being in awe of a God who gave King David the strength to conquer a giant.
Becoming lost in wonder at a God who delivered Daniel out of a lion’s den.
Marveling at how Jesus came into our world in the form of a baby with the mission to reconcile all of us into the kingdom of God.
We are to tell stories of God’s goodness and faithfulness to the next generations.
God is the most creative storyteller ever told: sending his one and only son to heal us by his wounds and inviting his people to join Him in his mission of renewing and restoring the world.
We are to tell stories of God’s goodness and faithfulness to the next generations.
Storytelling can exist in many forms and contexts–journalism, social media, marketing, sports, you name it–but, the best stories I have read in my lifetime showcase the fingerprints of God at work in the lives of His people.
These stories hold purpose and meaning, acknowledging the subject as a piece of art that God has intricately created. These stories point back to the creativity of God, seeing all creation in the Imago Dei: the Image of God. These stories usher in shalom, peace and joy.
Photographer Hannah Corwin recently authored a book called “But God,” revealing testimonies of God’s sovereignty and provision.
I’m inspired by her work and hope to model her vision from God: “From the faceless to the famous, from the rich to the poor, no one is exempt from my love. These are my stories of hope. Now go tell them.”
I’ve aimed to integrate gold–pieces of unity, hope and faith–into feature stories, Public Relations pitches and marketing plans–by seeking to ethically add to God’s beauty and acknowledge his art. I believe that storytelling must be God-honoring, not self-glorifying. I believe it must seek to unite, rather than divide people.
God-honoring storytelling should travel into the deep trenches of vulnerability and truth.
I believe that we are an extension of the greatest love story ever told, God’s story. Storytellers near and far must tell stories of hope and redemption that have never been written before.
So, I thank the Greatest storyteller for Mr. Clinton’s “Sunshine Notes,” my family’s influence, Nancy Drew mystery books and most of all, His timeless truth.
For now, let’s keep storytelling golden.
