Tell Your Story

"Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity... that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally.


If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but spiritually....

In these pages I tell secrets...because that is one way of keeping track and because I believe that it is not only more honest but also vastly more interesting than to pretend that I have no such secrets to tell. I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets.

Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human." ~Beuchner, Telling Secrets

I read this today, quoted on one of my favorite blogs. And I was thinking of our discussions and of relationships, here and in real life. Perhaps this is why I am so free in the sharing of my story. Perhaps this is why I feel the need to write when I am most desparate. Even the darkest secrets that I don't have the courage to share (yet) get written down. Because if I forget where I came from, then I forget the working of grace in my life.

Ann Voskamp wrote:

If I lose track of the stories, I'll lose track of part of me. Lose track of His voice in this life. Telling our stories, keepings traces of His graces, even in a venue such as this, may indeed be important, sacred work, because in these stories, God meets us. We listen to our life and hear God.

And maybe other who listen, hear Him too? Perhaps in sharing our stories, spiritual disciplines of reflecting and telling the truth, even in this public space, others too just groping along might find more of their way?

In Revelation, the saints overcome the Enemy by three things: the Blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and not loving their very lives. The word of their testimony. To say "This is where I was and this is how God healed me" is to overcome the darkenss. What is hidden can destroy a life, but what is brought into the light can be used of God to overcome the Enemy. Not only for ourselves, but for those who would read our stories. Our lives are not just about us.

As long as I live, I will share my stories of brokeness and healing, darkness and light, sin and redemption, grace, forgiveness, despair, hope, sorrow, and joy. My children will read them and see the mercies of God. And perhaps see some light from them shine on their own stories.