my story

Sitting around the table we laugh, eat and pray. We are now starting to share stories. Not just any stories but our own stories. The story of our journey that brought us to Christ and how He has carried us since. I look at the women around the table and realize how different we all are but the thing that brought us together in the first place was Christ.
As we have gone through Galatians as a small group we have seen the impact vulnerability has in community. In result of that, each week a few people have started sharing their personal testimonies. I sit there and watch their faces and hear their journeys. We listen to their trials and our hearts ache and we see God's love and redemption through each praise. Now their stores are mine, their struggles are my struggles, and their joys are my joys. We are a community and we are able to lift each other up and love each other more.
Tonight my story will become theirs. I am nervous because I have never shared my testimony before in full. I have told stories and experiences but never the whole thing. I like to think of it more as a story than anything else. God is sharing a bit of His grander story through me. Through all the things I am able to do, all the lives I can be a part of and through all the lessons I have learned. We make such an impact to the people around us. Whether we are in an office or out in the world sharing the gospel, God has a way to make each of us make a huge impact.
Bob Goff writes, "I used to be afraid that if I was authentic I might take a hit, but now I know that being real means I will take a hit."
I have talked about identity and struggling with being myself. Recently I am figuring out more of who that person looks like. I am trying to learn to be comfortable in my own skin and not worry about how others perceive me. I am learning to be vulnerable and to be real. My whole life I have hidden behind walls for fear of getting hurt but God calls us to live a life of reckless abandon and to love with all we are. That means being vulnerable and that means getting hurt. In the end, I believe it will be worth it and I will learn something through the pain. Until then, I plan on loving hard and loving extravagantly even if it doesn't make sense. I plan on being real and being myself even if people do not get it.
Will you?

"To love at all is to be vulnerable." -C.S. Lewis