Sharing God Stories

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

~ Frederick Buechner Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

I put together a class on sharing our God stories and the material focuses on the craft of writing. But finishing the class with a life's manuscript that's polished and well written is not the point. A friend of mine once said, “It's about the process, not the product.” Yes, excellence is important, and we should take pride in our work. But there's a danger in getting so focused on how perfect the finished product appears that we forget to enjoy the process that got us there. Writing is a process, a journey that allows us to disentangle and deconstruct our thoughts with a depth than mere spoken words can't provide.

They say that reading makes a better writer. I've done the reading:

Anne Lamott Bird by Bird: “Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.”

Stephen King On Writing: “The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

Annie Dillard The Writing Life: “Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Dan Allender To Be Told: “Fasting from any nourishment, activity, involvement or pursuit—for any season—sets the stage for God to appear. Fasting is not a tool to pry wisdom out of God's hands or to force needed insight about a decision. Fasting is not a tool for gaining discipline or developing piety (whatever that might be). Instead, fasting is the bulimic act of ridding ourselves of our fullness to attune our senses to the mysteries that swirl in and around us.”

The list goes on. The library shelf of life is filled with many great authors, but at some point, you have to set the books aside long enough to start writing. I wrote a class on writing to teach others how to find their voice, because every one has a story just waiting to be shared. You were made with purpose and glory. It's time to stop hiding your light. Let it shine. You have a story that's worth telling. What are you waiting for?

So tell me, what's your story?