The pen is mightier than the sword.
Words can create love that can last a lifetime.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.
When asked to summarize how I think about ministry I often say I am the curator of stories: my story, other's stories and God's story. Weaving these together into a story of salvation is an honor and a privilege that I do not take for granted. I believe that storytelling that is embedded in truth telling is one of the most powerful works we do as a people of God.
I have sat with people who have suffered immense trauma. I sit and listen as they tell me the most heartbreaking stories one can ever hear. I sit and I listen. Once a person has shared their story (the truth of their trauma) they often stiffen waiting to be told they have misunderstood their own story; because others have done so, and in so doing increase the harm. When they hear no condemnation, when they hear no clarifying statements, when they see that they have been truly heard - tears of relief often flow. Having someone, anyone, acknowledge that they have been heard, is a gift of pure grace.
The story of God that we find in the Bible are reflections of God's love for us in all of our brokenness and in all of our beauty. The story of the first creatures and how they struggle to follow God to the story of the early church discovering what it truly means to follow Jesus expands our own horizons.
For those who reject the other's story are people who limit their world. They create a false reality, one devoid of horizons. They are left with just the ground on which they stand.
God's desire for us is to enter into the story that carries us forward to the horizon where beauty and grace and love abound. We discover this through telling our story, listening to other's story and experiencing God's story. Our pain, our joys, our melancholy, our hobbies, and our grief all make for powerful stories that have the ability breath grace into the world.
I will leave you with this:
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:14 & 16)
