The power of story.

Life as a bookcase.

Full of stories.

We pen them, we save them, we store them.

Then we pull them of the shelf to share,

As we sit around, we tell the stories of our lives.

Then as they read each excerpt, we search our shelves for one of a similar genre.

To read. To tell. To share.

It’s how we relate,

How we know there are others like us here.

They elicit feelings, connections,

These stories of hurt, brokenness and redemption.

The books on our shelves challenge and motivate, inspire and create, a deep bond with those we share them with.

Jesus taught with story because it’s powerful.

And we gain a glimpse of that great grace as we integrate with others over a gathering of stories.

The smattering of backgrounds and experiences, all different yet all the same.

Revealing our humanity, our deep core.

Knowing and wanting to be known.

We want to share them, to read them aloud,

If only one would be willing to listen.

But we fear they won’t understand,

That we will be judged by the plot we wrote or the words we chose.

So we lock up our library out of fear.

And no one is moved by our stories.

But the freedom to share is the freedom to read our story to those who may care to hear.

With each day we are writing.

Adding to the volumes we call our lives, yet it has always been designed that we write in order to share.

Even hurt and shame, disappointment and pain.

They weren’t meant to be books to be burned;

But read aloud. Shared. Heard.

They reflect God’s story, his redemption, his grace.

It need not be finished before we read it.

The most healing may come in reading it while in the midst of it.

Someone may be able to help shed light on the ending, help you write if need be.

Our stories, our pasts, our mistakes.

Meant to be shared, picked off the shelf, and taken to the fire.

Not to be thrown in, but to be read by its light.

Shedding light on the kingdom breaking in day and night.

Why do we fight our greatest desire to be known out of fear?

We need to share and hear these stories.

As mundane and seemingly as they may be, it contains power. There is great beauty and profound unity found in story.

We may not see its affect on us or those around us, but it does. Our souls sing.

To share and to hear.

To read and to see.

To wrap our ears around the whispers of stories winding through our weak bodies.

To continue to write and record those stories in the shelves of our memories.

Life is a bookcase. Full of stories.

If you take all the bookcases of the world across space and time and put them together, you find unity. Beauty. The complete story.

So let’s read.

Let’s write.

And allow ourselves to be moved, to be shaken by its mystery.