Our Shared Stories

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. 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 […].  Frederick Buechner Telling Secrets

Reading, Marking and Inwardly digesting scripture requires us to tell our stories in juxtaposition to the word of God. No one can tell our stories but us, and each of our stories is different. Thus there are as many ways to see and hear God and God's work as there are people in the world. I love the words above from Buechner because he stresses the importance of telling our stories without judgment...of ourselves or each other.

A beloved friend dismissed her ability to write, saying that she didn't have the gift of words. And yet she walked out into the garden and discovered the gift of flowers in spring and wrote eloquently about how much joy they brought. Another friend claimed a fear of writing/journaling saying she could only sketch. Sketching is journaling, we said, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

God is ready and waiting for however and whenever we tell our stories. God longs for us to notice who we are and where we have come from and who we meet along the way and to recognize that in so doing we are building the community of the Kingdom. We are called to be a part of the Kingdom movement, building it one story at a time!