Everyone has a story.
Whether it’s worth being told is a question we often wrestle with as writers. Do we open our hearts and draw out memories and bind them together with words and phrases trying to make them dance or penetrate or wrap tight around our readers? Do we use our minds to spark a fire in our reader’s neurons, inspiring thought and contemplation?
Do we trust that the story written is one that is being authored by the master of all words? Or do we doubt the ink on the sheet, the Helvetica lines marching across the page? Are our words too insignificant, our story too small to be worthy of an audience?
What is our goal in putting pen to paper, typing out lines on the screen, or scratching phrases onto receipts or gum wrappers for fear of losing those precious words?
Do we wish to come alongside each other and lift up our days of jelly stained cheeks and naps that are missed and dreams that seem forever out of our grasp? Do we celebrate wild when we are fierce, even when we are frail? Because God has invested in us eternity.
When our words are read, are we hoping you’ll grasp your sides and sink down into a belly laugh that makes you snort, or weep understanding, or grip your fists in righteous anger?
Do we hope to take a little off your plate with something that has worked for us?
Do we need someone to sprinkle our path with wisdom because they have seen the other side and walked these steps and know?
Do we just want someone to type in the comments, “Yes, you get me. Thank you.”
Words have lived eternal. In the beginning was The Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. God has told His story in Chapter and Verse but just as scripture is alive, a breathing moving power, we too are filled with story for we are made in His image.
Our days a testament to His grace, in the messy moments of motherhood, when our tongues slip or our tempers flare and impatience leaks out fleshly and feral. And His grace bleeds into the cracks.
We are filled with story in our pursuit of love. In our hearts for the poor, the oppressed, the tiny bodies filled full with spirit, entrusted to our care. Even when our love is imperfect.
We tell it in children sponsored, adopted, birthed. In mouths fed, lives nourished, and families formed. Souls brought whole into grace.
We are filled with story when we spread bare our souls and let our words show His way. In our families, our marriages, our lives as single women or mothers, in our ministries and workplaces and art.
So, tell your story. Shout it out, or jot it down. Share it over coffee and a scone. Share the beauty but don’t leave out the mess, the burdens, the fears and failings. It’s in our humanity that we connect and see the embroidered threads swirling into images. Of a people redeemed. The story of us.
flickr photo credits by gwennypics and chrisdlugosz
By Alia Joy writing her story at Narrow Paths to Higher Places
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