A month later I am still digesting everything that happened over the two days I was at Story Chicago. Here are a few of the things running around in my head…
We’re not tired because we’re doing too much;
we’re tired because we’re doing the wrong things.
[Chris Seay]
These are they who have a story to tell.
[Stacy Spencer]
Beauty is God whispering “I love you”.
[John MacMurray]
We’re censoring our stories when we only talk about our successes.
[Mike Foster]
The enemy tell’s us to be fearful & scared of our pain,
but the Gospel tells us it’s all about our pain.
[Mike Foster]
Really like some of these, especially the Chris Seay one and the theme of censoring our stories. I’ve been thinking about that sort of thing recently – nit just that we are censoring our stories when we only talk about our success but also that we deprive the world of our testimony when we are embarrassed to tell about our lives.
I’ve heard some powerful stories recently that would be so uplifting to the church if only people would share them.
@ Matt: Too true. I guess my struggle is not necessarily in being willing to share my story, but in knowing when it is appropriate. Sharing our stories brings freedom and encouragement, but sometimes not everyone needs to know every part of it. How do we know when to share, and what to share?
The cop out answer is prayer.
I guess the other unsatisfactory answer is experience.
I’m not sure there is a satisfactory answer, but a willingness to share is certainly a starting point. I think the openness to sharing is the right attitude, much more likely that we’ll be guided about when it is right to share if we are open to sharing.
@ Matt: I like both those answers, personally, because I’m not sure there are supposed to be ‘satisfactory answers’, as much as we’d like there to be! Maybe in the process of listening, praying, and experiencing we actually learn more about our own stories.