Let me start off with a few clarifications.
I am not saying you should share your story with every person you meet. Nor am I saying that you should share every detailed part of your story with every person.
What this article is about is being aware of those moments that maybe God opens up and there it is…the moment for you to use your story for something far greater than yourself.
This is about letting go of the shame and guilt of your past and deciding to step out in boldness and truth when and if the moment calls for it, sharing your story, and then stepping back and watching what can unfold…
1. YOUR STORY MATTERS.
Your story matters. Period. End of Story…ah…except it’s actually not…the end of the story that is.
As I have mentioned before in this article, YOUR LIFE, YOUR ONE OF A KIND UNIQUE BEAUTIFUL LIFE is the only one like it on the face of the planet and the only one that was or ever will be in the history of the world!
Do you not think that when people discover some super talented artist and they say they are like a 1 in 10,000,000 discovery that is special?
Beloved, my friend, YOU ARE FAR MORE VALUABLE THAN 1 IN 10,000,000! You are so valuable, that the most powerful God and King in the world, the one who commands the stars and can call legions of angels at his very word, who can hold the entire universe on his pinky finger GAVE UP HIS MOST TREASURED POSSESSION…HIS ONLY SON….to die FOR YOU!!
That right there is a Mic Drop, walk off the stage, boom moment to prove YOUR STORY MATTERS.
Your story is valid not because I say so, but because Christ says so! I mean He could have made you to be a dog or a tree, but He didn’t. He chose to make the one of a kind, never to be duplicated ever again YOU! Your story is valid simply because He chose to make you so that makes your story (your life) valid! Stamped and approved!
2. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!
Here is a crazy out of nowhere possible paradigm shift for you?
What if…just bare with me here…what if…all of it, from the pain and losses to the struggles and overcoming, wasn’t even about you?
Just hang with me for a minute and steep in it with me.
What if it wasn’t just about you at all? What if the pain and misery of watching your loved ones suffer was so that you could serve that person and also then have eyes to seek out those suffering in the same way and be there for them.
What if the trauma of losing your baby through miscarriage was so that it gives you the heart to grieve with those experiencing that same lonesome loss.
What if the desperation and fear you experienced living in your car was so that you could share that story with someone that needs to know that doesn’t end up defining you or becoming your forever.
What if all the pain and loss is for something so much greater? It gives you a bigger lens to see far outside of your own world into the beautiful great big world of others.
Maybe it’s all about sharing your story with someone else and that person’s journey.
Galatians 6:2 reminds us “Carry each other’s burdens and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Your story could change someone’s entire world and help to reshape their future. Your story is about so much more than you.
3. SHAME IS A LIAR!
Have you lived so much life that it sometimes seems like multiple lives in the span of this one life thus far? Have you experienced pain, trauma, agony, and suffering? Do you feel ashamed, embarrassed, tormented, and defined by the pain of it all? Do you think your life is one big mess up that is just always going to go around and around like this?
No!! That isn’t how it works my friend!
Your story is worth something…it’s worth soooo much! If you only knew how valuable all the pain and suffering and your entire story is and how desperately someone needs to hear it from you.
What if all the lies of the shame and embarrassment aren’t from where you thought they were from?
What if all the lies of the people saying, “Don’t tell people because they will judge you” are actually lies from the evil one because he doesn’t want others to see the truth of overcoming!
What if the shame you have experienced is actually your path to greatness? If you can kick that shame to the curb and identify it for what it truly is….a lie from the evil one….and you throw it off and put your story out there for the world to see.
What if the trauma was designed to give you a different perspective than the everyday person may have. You are able to seek out and truly see those that are hurting that may seem like they have it all together.
We have all been through pain and suffering or will go through it at some point. It’s a part of the Christian walk. It was designed that way. We are even told to not be surprised at the painful trial we are experiencing, but instead to rejoice that we participate in the sufferings of Christ! (I Peter 4:12-13)
DID YOU HEAR THAT?
Y’all just stop it right there…….we are supposed to suffer and then we are supposed to rejoice about sharing in that part of Christ and His walk when He was here on earth as a mere human!
OK…OK……eeek!! Now I am getting excited as I am writing this because guess what?
If we are supposed to be like Him (which we are), and He suffered (which we also do), and He shared His story (do we? um yah can hear the crickets chirping now with conviction reigning supreme), then we should too!!!
Kick that liar named shame and fear to the curb!
I believe that you are worth sharing my story with and that you are also supposed to share your story. The pain was meant for something. Without the pain, we wouldn’t know to long for something more! If it was all easy, we wouldn’t need a God and we wouldn’t long for Him or appreciate Him, that’s for sure!
I’m OK if people judge me or even think I am a loser because it’s not about me. You and I are meant to share our stories!
Luke 8:39 tells us “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
Like seriously do you get it now?
4. IT REMINDS US AND OTHERS THAT WE ARE NOT ALONE!
I feel like a kid who just discovered they have a brand new puppy under the Christmas tree Christmas morning….yall….the excitement running through my veins is palpable and I keep hitting the backspace as I type cause my fingers are all over the place I am so excited!
I am supposed to share my story and pain and trials in hopes that it blesses and encourages you to REMIND YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE! You are not some weird freak of nature. You are not doing it all wrong. You are not the only one on the face of the planet that is screwing up this badly. You are not some anomaly that somehow God messed up when He made you.
Not thinking any of those thoughts? OK…my bad…maybe those were my thoughts I have thought multiple times through my life…OK…if I am sharing my story, Yes, those were my thoughts.
But God.
God just can’t y’all. He absolutely 1,000% CAN’T MAKE MISTAKES.
He also isn’t the author of the bad stuff happening.
So, if He can’t make mistakes (which is true) and He can’t lie (also true), and He isn’t the author of the pain, but yet nothing can happen without it getting His sign off first, then it has to all matter for something!
If it matters, it needs to be shared!!!
5. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO SHARE!
Here is the deal, OK? The Bible is the final authority on all things, right?
Well, in the Bible, how do we learn things? By regular everyday people (yes they really were just like you and me) sharing their stories. They shared their stories, they shared their struggles. Overwhelming grief, incredulous joys, tormenting pain, and moments of seeing the light. They are all in there! All of it points us to Christ and reminds us that we are not alone!
Your story matters just as much as their story.
How do I know this?
Well, because if it didn’t, He wouldn’t have made you. The same God that made them, made you! He wasn’t done when He made people in the Bible. I know this because He made you and He made me long after and is still going strong with creating people in His image today!
When you have a major breakthrough whether at work or home, or you are proud of a loved one whether it be a friend, co-worker, spouse, or your kid, what’s one of the first things you want to do?
You want to share it with someone! It’s the best thing to do when there is an achievement!
For some reason, when it’s private sad or what we are told is shameful news, we hide it, we cover it up, we tend to possibly even lie about it if asked for fear we will be judged, dictated to, or even worse told we somehow brought it on ourselves.
I am here to tell you, my friend, those are all lies from the evil one. And while those reactions may happen…they have all happened to me, that doesn’t mean you stop sharing your story!
Because the moments will come, and come they shall, where all the sudden God puts someone in your path, He directs the conversation, you open up and that person’s life has changed because God decided to place you together as for such a time as this.
6. IT CAN DRAW OTHERS TO CHRIST
Ahh…then there will be the well-meaning Christians who say well God’s story is the only one worth sharing. The rest of us just need to live our lives and not try to share anything but Christ.
Oh, you of little faith….God uses the every day and each other to reach others for Him!
Want scripture proof of this? Look at the one book of the Bible that never even mentions God’s name and yet His hand is all over that book like white on rice on a white paper plate in a snowstorm!
Which book is it?
The Book of Esther! If you haven’t read it, run, don’t walk to the book of Esther and read it for the first time! It’s short but seriously powerful stuff in there and God put that little orphan girl there as for such a time as this!
Want many more examples?
I have read a few books over the course of my life that literally changed my life and pointed me to Christ each time. As examples, I will share 2 of those with you.
One was The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom and I so look forward to meeting her one day in Heaven.
Another was one that God was using (unbeknownst to me at the time) as foreshadowing in my own life.
It was Joni Eareckson Tada’s first book about how she became paralyzed. Little did I know that many years later, my mom would become paralyzed on Christmas Day on the way to church and I would have the privilege of becoming her caregiver and the honor of meeting Joni. I fully know that if she had never shared her story and I had never read her book I wouldn’t have been as prepared and known about some of the very realistic and hard things to expect as I entered the world of caregiving for a trauma victim/survivor.
YOUR STORY DOES MATTER AND NEEDS TO BE SHARED!
We are all a part of history eventually and the word “history” can be broken down to look like this. “His Story”. If that is the case, and you believe that all lives matter and are precious and unique and that we are all a part of His Story, then why would you not share your story?
No shame over the past or present….turn that shame into boldness.
No fear over what others will think or being judged…turn that fear into projection and project your story to the world.
No more angst over being seen….PUT IT OUT THERE FOR THE WORLD TO SEE.
It’s OK if they judge. It’s OK if they don’t see.
Romans 8:1-2 assures us, “ Therefore, there is now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has SET YOU FREE from the law of sin and death.”
Someone will see. Someone needs it. Someone needs your story right now to know that they are not alone. To keep fighting the fight. To eventually have their own courage to be empowered to share their story.
One day I won’t be here anymore and neither will you…if we don’t share our stories now, then when?
7. IT GIVES US COURAGE AND HOPE FOR THE FUTURE!
Share your beautiful story and know that God is using it to build something great for His kingdom and that we don’t get to see that beautiful tapestry until it’s all finished.
What if the parts you are most ashamed of, harbor the most guilt over, what if those are the ends of the threads that are tied to the underside of the tapestry to hold it together? Those are the pieces that make up the strength of the entire tapestry so that the knots are all stronger and thicker and hold up the beauty of the pretty side for the world to see.
Without the knots of the pain holding it firm to the tapestry, the beauty would fall short, because there would be nothing to hold it up, nothing to compare it to. Maybe we have it all wrong?
Maybe it’s the underside that is the beauty…the pain, the heartache, the suffering, the torment…it’s all that bonding to the tapestry because it’s what bonds us to Christ.
Christ is like the base layer if you will and his pain and our pain are the knots tied underneath it all to give it it’s grounding. It bonds us all together…eventually all the threads are so interwoven you wouldn’t be able to separate them if you tried.
Beauty without pain is just a pretty thread, but of no value and has nothing to hold fast to.
If Christ is the base and we are bonded to him in pain, then we have to have the pain (the knots) to be tied to him and therein lies the beauty itself.
Romans 8:17 affirms this, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
Share your story. Don’t hide it. You and your story were meant for so much more!