.One Story at a Time.

For a moment I thought perhaps 2013 will be the year that I will stop blogging - when my fingers will hover over the keyboard and then slowly back away from the keys. The year when I will say enough. I've let enough people in, and I would straighten my shoulders, push back my chair, brush my hands off and walk away from this space. A space that has brought me so much beauty and so much pain. I have been blogging since 2005, shortly after my Cadi was born. I wanted a place to remember all of her firsts and what it felt like to be a young, first-time Mommy. My blog has grown and changed just as my story has grown and changed. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Journals fill up boxes that tell of my life, my thoughts, my dreams - my story.

And here, this tiny space, in the great big web, this tells my story too. It tells a story that He is authoring, and the final chapter hasn't been completed yet, so gently He asks me to keep writing.

Keep writing when I am misunderstood.

Keep writing when my hands shake and my heart races.

Keep writing when the story doesn't make sense, and the next chapter seems crazy, or forgotten, or too far away.

Just keep writing, because someone, somewhere will connect with this story and will collide with these words, and our stories just may mingle and weave beautifully together in the Ultimate story. Because alone, our story is insignificant and incomplete, but as part of the whole, Ultimate story, it is beautiful and relevant, and it all ties together in a breathtaking mosaic.

When one shares a story - writes it and lays it open for others to read - there is so much vulnerability in the sharing. But if I have learned nothing else, these past years writing out my soul, it is this: we all have a story to share. It is in the sharing of these broken, everyday stories that the beautiful redemption of Jesus is so brilliantly seen.

I feel nudged to keep coming here and keep writing - to be brave when I don't feel like it, and write authentically from my heart, because I know there are other women working in the Kingdom, who just might connect with the words on this page. In Jesus we are connected; we are community. I know that other people are meant to share the pages of my story.

My prayer is that at the heart of my story, in the words that I share, that you find Jesus and your own words to share your story. Our stories matter. Let's take time to share them, one story at a time.

Come and listen…let me tell you what God has done for me. Psalm 66:16

(A few stories I am reading while the stomach flu ravages our home.)