The power of a story

The morning of the fourth of July, I was at my boyfriend's house, eating breakfast with his best friend and his grandmother. The petite, feisty, 70-something lady was animatedly talking about soccer. I have never seen a woman so excited about soccer in my life. And I've been around a lot of soccer people.

After a few minutes, she started sharing her testimony with us. It is a powerful story of trusting God for healing and taking Philippians 1:21 quite literally: "to live is Christ, to die is gain." She believed God and God came through for her. I was inspired by her faith to take God at his word. If he promises something, we should believe he will do it.

A week earlier, I had been meeting with some new friends and was told that they were inspired by my story; that sharing my story with them reminded them of how awesome God is and that when we share our stories, he is glorified. They encouraged me to start blogging- because they believed that others could be inspired by my story too.

And for the last nine months or so, I have been thinking about how much I could benefit from hearing other people's stories: about life, love, and God. At times, I question myself because I think I'm the only one who does a certain thing, or feels a certain way, or thinks a certain thought in particular situations. But every time I talk someone with similar experiences, I realize that I'm not crazy. I'm not alone. And there are people that understand me!

The culture I live in says that talking about yourself is prideful. Most of the older people in my life don't talk about themselves much, so I don't get to hear stories too often. I usually don't know what questions to ask. And I'm not sure how to inspire others to tell their stories. But stories encourage, inspire, challenge, comfort, relieve, inform, and entertain. So I'm going to start by sharing my stories. I hope you'll be inspired to share yours as well.