What’s Your Story?

“Once upon a time there lived a princess in a beautiful castle in a faraway land. She met her Prince Charming and they lived happily ever after.” Does this story sound familiar? As a child, do you remember the stories that your parents or grandparents read to you or that you read yourself. Most of these fairy tale stories started the same way….”Once upon a time” and then more often than not, they ended with “and they lived happily ever after.” Once we were finished reading, we felt happy for the characters in that story.

As little girls, I’m sure many of you wanted to be just like that princess, to find your Prince Charming, have the picture perfect wedding, start a family with 2 kids, a dog and live in a home with a beautiful yard and white picket fence and ultimately live happily ever after. What a great dream to have! What a great story to live!

But then all of a sudden, we are no longer that little girl playing dress up and having tea parties and dreaming of our prince charming. We are young ladies trying to figure out who we are, what we want to do with our lives and how are we going to accomplish it all. Those teen aged years and early adult years can be a crazy roller coaster ride. And then we become adults, and that roller coaster ride can be even crazier! Time for reality verses the fairy tale.

Our stories can be tales of good decisions and bad decisions, going to college or going to work, getting married or staying single, getting divorced, getting remarried, having children, or struggling to have children. Some of the stories include working hard toward a promotion to get that dream job and some may include losing a job with no explanation; or maybe having a good income to buy a house or barely making ends meet to survive. Stories filled with good times, good heath, celebrations and also those of illnesses, injuries, arguments and lost loved ones are all possibilities.

We all have
a story to tell don’t we?
And all of our stories are different!

It’s the differences in our stories that make each of us unique, with our own testimonies to share. At times we will have similarities which can be used to help others but it important not to compare our stories with anyone else’s.   However, the one thing we do have in common as believers is the author of our story which is God. Let’s face it ladies, if we try to write our own story and don’t have God writing it with us, it’s not going to turn out well. Philippians 4:13 tells us that “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” We need the love of Jesus Christ in our lives to help us with our life story. We are His daughters, fearfully and wonderfully made, so ultimately our story is His story.

So we need to keep God as the main character in our story, not playing the supportive role.  If He is the author of our story, then it’s pretty important that we maintain a close relationship with Him. We need to remember to spend time with Him through prayer and reading His word.

 

In doing that, we not only need to share our story with others, but we need to share God’s story with everyone. We need to tell everyone about the love and the hope of how God’s grace enters our lives, He has mercy on us and then His story becomes our story.

Psalm 22:22 – I will praise you to all my brothers, I will stand up before the congregation and testify of the wonderful things you have done.

Psalm 66:16 – Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me.

Are you willing to tell your story?

You may be thinking that your story is not worthy to tell. Sometimes we can get caught up with all the “drama” in our lives, all the negatives, and all that is going wrong. Why would anyone want to hear that story? Ladies, it’s our mindset, we have to remember that when we are struggling, we cannot lose our focus on God. God places trials in our lives so we will rise up and turn to Him and trust Him. We need to tell others of our struggles and how God is there helping us, loving us and even sometimes picking up the broken pieces.

Through your trials, challenges and weaknesses, are you willing to give God the glory on how it was through His strength you made it through? Are you ready to have God reveal his strength through you?

2 Corinthians 12:9 – but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, and insults, and hardships, in persecutions, and difficulties. For when I am weak then I am strong.

Be an ambassador for Christ and share your story. I can’t promise you that it will be that perfect story that you read about as a little girl, as a matter of fact, I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be. But with the love of God in your heart, you can live and tell your story to others. You can be a light to others, sharing all of God’s promises as you are living your own fairy tale.

What about the happily ever after?

 

My dear friends, be confident in your happily ever after because we know how the story ends…. Eternal life with our Lord and Savior. I can’t imagine any better ending to the story that that…can you?