Invite Someone's Story into your life

​God doesn't bring storms into our lives to see what we're made of, he brings them to see what we make of them. And what we make of them, that's our story.

I led a training this week. It was a much smaller group than I'm used to training. The upside of the smaller group was we had more time to share our stories. And, with smaller groups, people feel safe enough to share their stories quicker than they might in larger groups.

So the stories flow...

When I say stories, I don't mean their Facebook stories.

I don't mean their tell us what you think we want to hear stories.

I don't mean the stories people tell to protect themselves from having to tell the stories they don't want to tell.

I mean THEIR stories.

I think we do people wrong by labeling stories. By categorizing good stories and bad stories. Positive stories and negative stories. I think we do people wrong when we do anything to make someone wonder if their story is one worth telling. Because I believe more than ever everyone has a story worth hearing.

When people get a chance to tell THEIR story, it is almost always a challenging story. A challenge that they've overcome. A challenge they are battling to overcome. A challenge they wish had never happened.

When given the chance to tell THEIR story, people will almost always tell a challenging story because deep inside they know that's the challenge that has most written their story.

Or is most writing it.

I love hearing their stories. Because it's in challenging stories I can most see my own story. It's in challenging stories where I can most see our common denominators.

Our greatest opportunity for unity.

Shared challenges.

When we pressure each other to tell stories that sound like we've risen above all of our challenges in life - that sound like we've risen above EACH OTHER in life - we lose all chance for unity.

We lose all chance to see ourselves in each other.

We lose all chance to make something of our shared challenges.

We lose all chance to have stories about togetherness, which leaves way too many of us lost in stories of loneliness.

Invite someone's story into your life. Not their good story. Not their happy story. Not their positive story.

Just simply invite THEIR story.