What’s Your Story?

Mary Fuller

It’s been a busy couple of months, and I’ve been away from the blog for just too long. God has been doing some really interesting things in my heart, and I wanted to share them with our readers.

Most of you have read enough about my younger years to know that it was pretty tough. I had a lot of heartache and trauma for a young girl. Yet God has used those experiences to teach me more about Him and to teach me about people. I’d like to make some general observations:

1. Everyone has a story. They may not even realize it themselves, but everyone has a story to tell. One very sad thing about our current culture is that we think that stories need to be crafted and told to us through media. We’ve lost the ability to imagine while hearing a good story, and we’ve especially lost the art of storytelling. Each of us needs to craft and hone our own story to tell to the generations that follow us.
2. Everything has a purpose. We have an incredible God who is not limited by the curse of sin. We feel that limitation every moment of our day. But we serve a sovereign God who created and rules the universe. Even the horribly awful stuff that happened to me as a child had a purpose. God allowed those things in my life to draw me to Him, to help me crave His fellowship, and to shape me into the image of His Son.
3. God’s story is bigger than us. We are very much like toddlers in our thinking a good deal of the time. We tend to think the universe revolves around us. We forget that we are not the only child God has, and we fail to realize that He is also working in the lives of others. Sometimes what happens in our life isn’t about us, it’s about what God is doing in the lives of the people around us, and we get the awesome privilege of being part of their story. Hopefully, through our obedience we will be part of the good story, not the trauma!
4. We need to rehearse our story. Rehearsing our story to ourselves reminds us that God is active in our lives and is at this moment writing another chapter in the book of our lives. Rehearsing our story to others encourages them to trust God and follow after Him in the difficult times. Rehearsing our story can also bring others to an understanding of God’s draw on their lives, and bring them to repentance and salvation. As we rehearse, we need to learn the art of storytelling—not embellishment, but instead, learning to tell our story in an interesting and captivating way that holds the attention of the listener.

This is exactly what God has been doing in my life lately. He has been giving me multiple opportunities to share my God story (the story of what God has done in my life to draw me to Him, to teach me more about Him). He has also given me multiple opportunities to listen carefully to the God stories of others. Recent experiences include a young mom whose testimony reminded me of how God lovingly draws His loved ones to Himself, how patient He is in allowing us to suffer without Him, just enough enough to make us crave Him. And yesterday, I had the honor of listening to the God story of a woman who is older than I. Such stories give me courage to trust when I cannot see, to cling to the faithfulness of an all-wise, all-powerful God. And smack dab in the middle is the joy I’ve had lately of watching God write His story on the lives of a handful of young people that He’s placed in my life.

Last Friday, we had a Fuller Fun Fest at our house. We started having these fun fests a couple of years ago, but it’s been over a year since the last one. Basically, the kids’ friends come over just to hang out, jam on their intstruments, and sometimes we play games like Mafia or, Name the Owner of this foot. But this time, 32 kids (if you don’t count me...), ages 12–21, mixed so well that I never had to play a game. Later in the evening, Lance built a fire. The older guys stoked it hot, and one of the college guys started leading us in worship songs. It was an incredible evening. I had planned to wind things down around 10:00, and not long after, most of the kids’ parents had taken them home. But the college guys hung out till nearly 1:00. We sat in our living room and told stories. We laughed, we contemplated, and finally shooed them out the door. But I went to bed totally in awe that God has given us an opportunity to be part of the lives of these incredible young people whose stories He is now writing.

I’d like to encourage you this holiday weekend to take some time to think about your God story. What is it that God has done in your life that shows His love and care for you? Find someone to tell your God story to—one of your kids, your best friend, even a stranger you meet sometime in the next week. Work at your story to make the telling of it interesting so someone cares to listen. And read Psalm 78 to impress on yourself the need to be telling your story all the time, to yourself and to others.