Reason #179

I sat inside a little French restaurant tonight eating the best tomato soup I’ve ever tasted. It was dark and rainy outside, so soup made for the perfect meal. Actually, I had quite a bit more to eat than soup so I should rephrase and say that the soup made for a perfect side to my meal.

I woke up this morning determined to make good, healthy eating decisions. I have found that it is near impossible to eat healthy when you are away from home, plus it doesn’t help that Austin has incredibly delicious food served up in Texas-sized portions. Needless to say, my good decision making quickly went to the wayside shortly after breakfast.

After another long day of training and learning, my co-workers and I were ready for a break from work and a break from talking about work. As we ate dinner, the rain began to fall outside. Before long, it was a torrential down pour. We finished eating and had every intention to go shopping, however, we thought it’d be best to wait until the rain stopped. Well, what better way to wait out a rain storm than with dessert? So, I indulged in a sizeable lemon tart and I enjoyed every last bite of it. The rain continued to fall and we quickly realized that we could either stay inside and be dry for the rest of the evening, or we could swim our way to the car. We opted to stay put. And so we ate and we chatted, and even though we spend 40 hours a week together, we started sharing more of our personal stories, learning more about one another.

I love these two ladies. Love them to pieces! I couldn’t be more grateful to share an office space with these two. We eat together, spend our days together, travel together and I never get tired of being around them. And although I’m sure our career paths will carry us to new places eventually, I try not to think about that. I see how God divinely put them in my path, and whether or not they know it, they have been such a source of joy in my life. We don’t talk about my situation a lot. They’ve always been so sweet and respectful to never ask questions or impose, but tonight I shared more with them because I wanted to. They’ve seen me every day for the past year so they’ve seen the transformation in my life. But, I wasn’t the only one who had a story to share tonight.

Sharing is hard. Sharing is scary. And, truthfully, sometimes it’s just easier to keep to yourself. No one likes being vulnerable. Plus, when you share, you take a risk. You might share to much, share the wrong information, share with the wrong person, and then what?! Now, they have insight into your life. Now, they know your secrets, your fears, your weaknesses, your “soft spots.” And you have no idea what’s running through their thoughts. Are they judging you? Do they still like you now that they know the real you? Are they going to tell someone else the information you’ve confided in them? Once you share, there’s no taking it back.

I hated sharing my story. I hated talking about it. I felt it was just best to keep quiet and to myself. Only share if necessary. I couldn’t control what people thought about me when I told them who I really was, but I could control it if they didn’t know all the details, so maybe it was just better that way. After all, I didn’t feel like I needed to go around “burdening” people with my sad story. If I told them, they might judge me. If I told them, they might distance themselves from me. If they knew what had happened, they’d probably label me and not want to associate themselves with me.

But we all have a story. Some of us are open books and some of us are sealed shut. I used to be an open book until I had a chapter I didn’t like. And I felt very alone. I felt like I couldn’t talk about it. I wasn’t supposed to have a chapter like that and I was pretty sure I was the only person I knew with such a shameful chapter. And although my friends and family loved me, encouraged me, and swore that they didn’t think differently about me, I just knew they surely did. Plus, they couldn’t understand anyway. From what I knew, they all had good chapters in their books.

On Sunday, I sat with a friend and we talked “chapters.” We’ve known each other for a few years now but we didn’t know each other’s full stories. And what I’m slowly but surely realizing is that is rare to know someone’s full story. The more I’ve shared, the more others have shared with me and I see that we all have those chapters, those pages in our books that we don’t like. Pages we’d like to rip out but can’t because that would leave a gap in our story. And so what do we do with those pages, those paragraphs, those chapters?

I’ve tried to keep my book and my pages nice and neat because I’ve learned that we all judge books by their covers. And because of that little fact, we all try to keep our covers up to par. We have to look nice, desirable, and perfect. And from the outside things appear that very way. And so we look at that book, we assume that book has it all together, and we deem it a good read. And that book is thankful. Thankful that it didn’t get plucked from the shelf and flipped through.

But I’ve learned that there is an advantage to being an open book, and that advantage is called freedom. Because after a while, covering up and hiding gets pretty exhausting. And so, you open up. You quit hiding those chapters and you quickly realize that every book has its own set of chapters. Even the perfect looking books aren’t perfect. And you begin to flip through the dark, hard, shameful pages with others and the healing begins. And the more you share, the less it hurts. And the more you are read, the easier it becomes. And before long, you realize how your hurtful chapters are actually helping others and they don’t seem so bad anymore. Sure, it would be nice to re-write them now and again, but if you did that, if you didn’t have those pages, how could you make a difference? How could you help if it wasn’t a part of your story? Because nothing is more encouraging than to read a chapter from someone else’s book, realizing it has an uncanny similarity to yours, and be healed from their pages. And nothing is more beautiful than letting someone else read your chapters and knowing that your story is healing their heart a little more, too.

I sat on my front porch a few weeks ago, as a friend and I rocked back and forth in my old blue rocking chairs, and he reminded me that if we can’t talk about it, if we can’t share our story, we aren’t truly healed. And although plenty are the days I struggle having certain chapters in my book, he reminded me that I was chosen to have this story. A story that was written for me long before I existed and a story that is far from being over.

And so chapters were shared tonight. And with each story, with each page that’s read, incredibly powerful things happen. Things like freedom, healing, encouragement, deepened friendships. And most of all, as I read these chapters, mine included, I see the mighty hand of God working in each one to bring glory to His name and to remind us of how deeply He loves us. And if you ask me, I think these open, vulnerable, tender books always make for the best read!

#179 – Because He gives us stories that are worth reading and sharing!

 “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” – Philippians 1:6