Believe it or not you are a natural born story-teller and your story has the power to change lives. In this episode I’m not talking about the crafted stories you see in books or movies because if we wrote books and movies in the vernacular that we naturally use, they would never sell. So I’m focused on the way we organically engage the world around us with the spoken word.
So let’s first look at how we might underestimate and under appreciate words. While I know that you know how important words are, I liken it to, someone who has a natural understanding of something; maybe it’s science, art, music, language and because it comes easy to them, they downplay the importance, the gift. They don’t understand why it’s not obvious to other people. Same with words, it’s such a natural way for us to communicate that we don’t grasp the absolute power of our spoken words.
Dr. Jordan Peterson (a Canadian Psychologist) said something to this effect (with regard to the importance of words), “our whole culture is based on the idea of the supremacy of the word, that it is the word itself that extracts habitable order from chaos and possibility.”
For me, the most compelling example of the absolute power of the spoken word is that God spoke everything into being. Psalm 33:9 says, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” There are many other scriptures that tell of God speaking things into being. Genesis, right? When God spoke everything into existence. He gives us a beautiful example of the power and importance of words.
And to further drive home the value of words in our every day life. Every morning, you rise and begin to use words to bring order to your day as you make choices. You share things about yourself with those around you. Each time you connect with someone, you’re communicating in a way that conveys your needs, sharing a little bit about what’s been going on in your life, maybe sharing bits of information about your family as well as asking them questions and listening to their reply about what’s happening in their world. You are engaging in shared story.
And that’s why I say you are a natural born story-teller. The simple act of using words to navigate our day is the most natural form of communication where we share experiences and create connection.
Here’s another way to look at the importance of words. For a moment think about a solitary confinement environment. It doesn’t have to be a jail cell because there are plenty of people who live alone and have a limited ability to interact with others. People such as the elderly, or widows, those who have an illness that limits mobility, the youth of today are isolated from real life. So imagine what it would be like if you were not able to talk to anyone.
Even if you saw someone, maybe they come to drop off food or provide a health appointment like a nurse stops by your house, but the time frame that they’re there is limited and they’e simply fulfilling their job duties so it’s a brief exchange at best. Very limited.
To have a friendly verbal exchange with someone is vital to life with regard to mental health, relationship, connection and posterity? One of the most common desires of the human heart is to be seen, heard, valued and conversation can fill that need. Life is automatically enriched and becomes more meaningful when we talk with, share with and listen to those around us.
A minute ago I mentioned movies and books, and there is also the news and social media, various outlets that engage people. The attraction to these types of formats is that they are all story based and that’s why people tune in. Shared story will never get old. It’s foundation to our culture.
I think this establishes the importance of words and this is where I want to intersect your story. When we give proof of something in our lie, things based on our personal knowledge and experience, that is also known as a testimony.
Most times when people hear the word testimony they immediately categorize that as exclusive to a church setting. They automatically assume that means someone’s salvation story (your story of how God’s love overwhelmed you to the point that you accepted what He did on the cross, acknowledged that you were a sinner and asked Him to dwell in you with His Holy Spirit). But In this particular episode I want to go beyond the standard salvation testimony. Don’t get me wrong, they’re needed and they’re powerful and I’m not going to exclude them but I want to push out this topic when it comes to how we think about our personal testimony with regard to God’s goodness.
As believers (those who have made a profession of Fatih, accepting what Christ did on the cross/the shedding of His blood as payment for our sins) we have a place of authority in Christ. We exercise the authority given to us is when we follow in God’s footsteps using the example He gave us. We open our mouth and speak. And in the particular context of shared story, we tell about the goodness of God in all types of situations in our lives.
In Revelation 12:11 God shares a 2 part position of authority over Satan. The latter part of that verse says that we triumph over him (the evil one) by the blood of the Lamb (the lamb being Christ crucified on the cross) and the word of our testimony.
God gives us specific instructions on how we can overcome Satan’s influence in our mind, our body…our life and the lives of those around us. So part of our authority has to do with opening our mouth and sharing with others, our personal experience aka testimony of who God has been for us in the painful places of our life. When we do, we weaken and even break the lies that Satan is wooing us to believe, or maybe even has us believing.
When we experience God’s presence, influence, truth, love, comfort, peace, joy …..It literally exposes Satan as the liar that he is.
And when we open our mouth and speak of the goodness of God we become tangible evidence to the world around us. We are evidence of the fact that God cares about our pain. That He enters into our suffering with us to comfort us, and lead us through.
Here are a few examples of testimonies you have to share about with others. To be honest, as you move through your full cycle of life, you may have each one of these testimonies throughout the years ahead:
If you’ve professed God as your personal Lord and Savior, then you have a salvation testimony – you have an Acts 4:12 testimony (12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”). You can share where you were in life, what sort of condition your heart was in or the journey you were on to find truth, peace, comfort…how did God meet you in your moment of need and what is the difference He has made.
If God showed up for you in your dark valley, then you have a Psalm 23:4 testimony. (…yea though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death I will fear no evil). You can testify to who God is in some of the darkest places that the human heart can experience.
Has God healed you..then you have a Psalm 147:3 testimony (He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.) People need to know the heart of God for those who are afflicted.
Maybe you’re experiencing a long term health condition? Are you a caregiver? You have a Deu 31:8 testimony (Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.) If this is you, then you have the ability to testify to the mysteries that God has revealed to you about His heart for those who suffer long term.
Sharing your first hand experience of what you discovered about God in your trauma is a sliver of gold to another hurting heart. It’s the knot at the end of the rope for someone who feels all alone and wants to give up.
As many of you know this podcast was born out of a very dark valley that I walked though. My guests, predominantly women, share their personal story of who God is in the context of pain and suffering. I do this because shared story lightened my grief stricken heart when I unexpectedly lost my husband.
As I would experience the various emotions that are associated with grief and in the times when my emotions became very intense and I was really struggling, God would send me a woman who would share her story and it would ease the pain that seared my heart.
One example I’ll give you and it’s the story that always stands out to me when I think about the purpose of my podcast so I may have already shared this. I was struggling with the would’ves, should’ves and could’ves. In other words, the guilt of not having done enough for my husband because if I had, he’d still be alive today. That’s how Satan approached me in this painful place…I believed that if I had picked up on something, and of course in hindsight it seems so obvious, I could have changed the outcome for my husband, me, our family, my grandchildren. The weight on my heart was massive.
I kept running the various scenarios over and over in my mind. The ones that would have me get him to the hospital and they’d see that he was having a heart attack and they’d get him the help he needed and he’d still be here with us.
And God, in His sweetness, in His kindness, sent a woman who had the courage to share her story. She said, Sherrie, my husband was in the care of doctors twice. The third time was an ambulance ride in the wee hours of the morning. I was up with our one week old daughter when he left in the ambulance. His third trip to the hospital. He died. In the care of professionals. He had meningitis and they missed it. It hit me…Professionals are not God and I’m not God.
Hearing her story broke the grip that Satan had on my beliefs and lifted the weight of mental and emotional chaos and torment that was suffocating me.
Some things simply belong to God and that revelation was made clear through the example in her story. Submitting myself to God’s sovereignty gave my mind and my heart a place to rest.
Sometimes I rested in His lap, other times draped across His shoulders because He had to carry me and other times face down in the floor at His feet. But every time that I got a glimpse of His tender hands and His firmly rooted feet I got a glimpse of His scars…the scars on the hands and feet of the One who carries the burden of life and death.
Knowing that God has a solution to death…a literal reunion for His believers…and experiencing His intimacy in the darkest time of my life I now have a story that I will never get tired of sharing because I know what it feels like to struggle with God about serious faith and life questions. I know what it’s like for Satan to constantly undermine our well being with lies, planting chaos and spinning the truth at every turn.
The part of my story that I will share until my last breath is the goodness and kindness of God despite the pain of this life. I love using those 2 simple words…goodness and kindness. They’re extremely simple but don’t be fooled like I was….with God, in the dark places of life His goodness and kindness run extravagantly deep, and reveal infinite wisdom. Nothing about the pain of this life negates, detracts from God. It’s why you’ll often hear me say these 2 things:
1- God has not given us a vocabulary to accurately describe Him. I am unable to give Him His due honor, His proper praise and my full thanksgiving because of our limited vocabulary.
2- God speaks beautiful things in the dark. In the intimacy of pain, a place where no one else can reach, is where we discover how extravagantly deep and how infinitely wise God is as He reveals mysteries about His heart for us.
God gives us, not just anywhere, but a specific somewhere and even better, He gives us a specific someone…to rest our heart and quiet our mind, we’re able lift our head under the weight of the pain. He gives us His son Jesus. And because of Jesus, we can have a joy that does not make any sense in the context of suffering. We can have peace knowing that God will bring beauty from the rubble and ash that used to resemble your life.
So when it comes to our story, we’ve looked at the natural way we engage in shared story, We looked at the power of the spoken word when God spoke things into being. We also looked at the authority given to believers when we open our mouth and testify as well as the various ways we can let other’s know they’re not alone in their questions, confusion, chaos.
And that brings us to this question…Whether it’s your salvation testimony, a dark valley where God met you or the faithfulness of God through a painful health condition, how do we tell our story in a way that reveals the heart of God and reminds those who are suffering that they are not alone in their bone saturating pain.
Here are 3 ways that you can encourage someone to not give up. To point them to the One who is able to turn the painful places of this life into something they never imagined possible and it’s by using your story to introduce them to the One they can lean on, rest in and find peace in the days ahead.
Keep this in mind when you are ready to share your story: People are genuinely overwhelmed with life so we want to be as intentional and purposeful about the parts of our story we want to share vs need to shared.
1. What was life like before your moment of conversion, trauma, the health crisis?
Choose one example that reflects the condition of your life before it was interrupted and flipped upside down. One of the things that I would share with someone (especially if I knew it would only be a brief exchange) would be to say, my husband and I were in the sweet spot of life having weathered a little over 33 years of being together and then out of nowhere, he was gone leaving behind absolute emotional and mental devastation.
2. What did it look like for you to hit the wall and cry out to God?
Describe that moment when you finally came to the end of yourself…acknowledged that you did not have the ability to change your circumstance and you cried out to God.
As an example I might say, I struggled to make sense of what happened. The questions swirling in my mind and my heart created a level of chaos in my life that I could not escape. When I finally decided to lay down my self-defined rights to have all of my questions answered in a way that made sense and fit together nice neat is when I could finally discern God’s gentle kind voice.
3. In what ways did God respond? Share one of two ways that God showed Himself faithful.
I’d probably finish up by saying, I found Jesus to be a safe place to struggle with heavy questions about life, death and faith. He never shamed me nor rejected me. He simply absorbed my pain and gently showed me the way to healing.
At that point you can wrap up with a question that would connect the encouragement your offering with their pain point or you can simply offer to pray for them right there.
Those suggestions are a great starting point so that you can structure your story with purpose and clarity. Add more if you’re speaking in relaxed setting and you have more time. Add less if you only get 60 seconds with someone.
You may have heard me say this before, shared story makes the world go around in a much richer way. It is your shared story that will connect people to healing, grow relationship, create community and solidify your family.
The final benefit of sharing your testimony about the God of the Holy Bible (whether it be in the context of pain and suffering without God and therefore your conversion/salvation testimony or pain and suffering in the midst of a relationship with God) is that to do so is to take part in a portion of the redemption that God has for you. God never allows anything that He does not plan to redeem. In God’s hands, redemption is guaranteed. He wastes nothing. He is the sole power and authority to take what Satan meant to destroy us with and turn it for our good and God’s glory.
And people need to know that. So Share your story every time you get a chance because someone’s heart needs to be encouraged. Someone needs to know that it’s going to get better. Someone needs to know that God cares. Your story can make a difference to someone.
Live Loved and Thrive!
There are many books that can help you write your story. Here is a resource from a friend. I do not get any type of reward or compensation should you choose to purchase her book. I like it because it direct and to the point. The book is title “Write Your Journey: A Step-by-Step Guide to Write Your Life Story Fast”: https://www.amazon.com/Write-Your-Journey-Step-Step-ebook/dp/B09MG6FQVV?ref_=ast_author_mpb
