Called to Tell Our Stories

My family is getting ready to move again, and I am getting so excited! This time we are headed to Michigan, which is my husband's home state, my adjoining home state, and where we both attended college. We are going to be 6-7 hours away from both of our parents, which is closer than we have been since we graduated college 18 years ago. We also have some extended family in the area that we are looking forward to spending time with. As we prepare for the move, I am also reflecting on our year at our current duty station in Kentucky. I will always remember my time here as the season when God called me to share my story.

We arrived at our current location in Kentucky four years after Oliver died. As I met new people, I had a choice. I could talk about my daughter, our dog, my husband's work, and our current life and keep the loss of Oliver to myself. Or I could be brave, risk feeling additional pain or being misunderstood, and share my whole story. At first I was hesitant to share. It was still hard to push the words out of my mouth: "I have a son who passed away four years ago at the age of ten". I knew from previous experience that sharing led to awkwardness and too many people responding in ways that were hurtful instead of helpful. I didn't want to be known as the person who lost a child, or the oversharer who talks about her loss all the time. But not sharing also didn't feel true to who I was and led to me keeping lots of other things to myself as I tried not to slip up and share stories that revealed what I had chosen not to share earlier. Also, I knew that not sharing doesn't help me on my healing journey, it doesn't help others find hope in their own pain, and it doesn't give me an opportunity to glorify God for all the ways He has worked in my life.

A recent adventure with our homeschool group.

God was working on my heart and bringing me to a new place of healing. I felt Him calling me to share more. I was able to talk to some new people I met that I did awkwardly share with, and they encouraged me to continue sharing. I also talked to some friends from previous duty stations who have walked this journey with me, and they also encouraged me to share. Through these conversations, God opened my eyes to the fact that I wanted to share but I also wanted to wait until it wasn't painful to share. Once I was able to acknowledge I was waiting for that, I was also able to acknowledge a day without pain in my sharing wasn't going to come. It was always going to hurt to say the words. And I was never going to be able to control the way those I was sharing with responded. But that didn't mean I shouldn't share. God also opened my eyes to see the ways that it was painful not to share. If not sharing wasn't protecting me from pain, but was just trading one pain for another, maybe it was time to make a different choice.

God also used the study of His word to call me to share. I ran across Psalm 107:1-3: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story - those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south." These words rang like a clear call to me: "Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story". I was also studying the Gospel of John with Bible Study Fellowship. In the 4th chapter of John, we see the Samaritan woman encounter Jesus at the well. After talking to Jesus, she leaves her water jar, goes back to the town, and says to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? (John 4:29)" The people hear her story and some of them come to meet Jesus and believe. The theme of being willing to tell our story comes up again in John 9, when Jesus heals a blind man who is then questioned by the Pharisees. We see the man tell his story, and the telling strengthens his own faith and leads others to believe. The study of John showed me we too are called to tell people what Jesus has done for us.

Apparently Squire Boone, brother to Daniel Boone,
escaped from some enemies by hiding in this cave
(different from the larger cave above but on the same
property). He praised God for his deliverance and
considered it sacred ground afterwards. He eventually
 came back and built a gristmill in the area with his
sons and was buried in this cave. It reminded me of
being hidden by God in the cleft of a rock.

And so I started praying for opportunities to share and being intentional when God provided them, I started saying Oliver's name more in conversation worrying less about whether I had already shared about him or not, and I started this blog. Next week I want to share with you some of the things God has teaching me as I share. As we prepare to head to Michigan, I am thankful for the opportunities I have had to share here, the beautiful people I have met, the adventures we have gone on, and all the ways God continues to heal and bring purpose to me and my family.