Everyone has a story. If you can still your ego and actively listen, you hear the most amazing stories. Funny stories…scary stories…tragic stories. Stories with a moral. Stories with a lesson. Stories with a purpose. Our stories are how we integrate with the world. They track our mission in this life and help us relate to others. Stories are sensory word bombs we drop on the souls of others.

“Maybe stories are just data with a soul.”

— Brené Brown

I come from a long line of oral historians. That’s common in Appalachia. In times past, our ancestors were often illiterate and even if they weren’t, writing supplies were dear and there may not have been funds available to keep them at hand. My mother spent the last decade of her life writing down the stories and information handed down from as far back as anyone could remember. 

So these long, rambling stories I share here were born of that tradition. I always loved to write and tell stories. I wasn’t always encouraged by those I deemed important in my life. I didn’t really apply myself in school. I nearly flunked Senior English which would have kept me from graduating with my class. My interest in writing waxed and waned until Mr. Virgo died. Then I hit that with a vengeance.

Just when I think maybe I’ve written all I was meant to write, along comes someone who makes a heartfelt comment that makes me cry. Then I know…that’s God’s way of telling me to keep going, keep talking, keep writing and sharing and loving on people. Because we ALL need this. This world can be a dark and scary place, but there are so many bright and shiny spots in it if we just keep looking…keep trying…keep moving forward.

There was a long and dark space in my life when I was lost. So many things were going wrong and I had no idea how to change it and make it better. It was one of those things that I just had to ride out and pray for the best outcome. During those years, my stories were as dark as my spirit and no one wanted to listen to them. That’s because I was heavily invested in dragging yesterday’s crap behind me like a big ol’ hefty bag of trash. 

I’m telling you…after a while, yesterday gets pretty darned heavy. Maybe it was getting “to a certain age” that changed me. Maybe it was losing Mr. Virgo so unexpectedly. Maybe it was just flat out exhaustion, I don’t know. What I do know is, I finally laid that junk down and kept moving on down the road. And the further I went, the less weight I felt in my chest. Oh, I forget from time to time and attempt to pick it up again, but yesterday is heavy, y’all. 

Just put it down.

?

“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”

Mark 4:33-34 ESV