Your Story Matters

In a need to state the obvious, I took a blogging break. Some of it was a result of not having the time so much, since having four kids. Some of it was running out of stuff to talk about. I just wasn't thinking that deeply, about much of anything. My energy was kinda in conservation mode, I guess. Some of it was believing the lie that what I had to say didn't matter. That other more famous and well known people have spoken on the subject, and so much better than I can, that it was pointless to bother saying anything at all. I have come to see quite clearly in this past year, however, how completely untrue that is. 

My story matters. It matters to me, considering how what happens to us forms us. It matters to my friends, because I matter to them. And it matters to random strangers, because it helps them to feel not so alone. 

Your story matters, too. Because you matter. You are important, even if it doesn't feel like it. Your family thinks so. Your friends think so. I think so, even if I've never met you before. Because your story helps me feel not so alone. 

I have just said goodnight to four ladies, who, while their stories are all different, hold in their hearts the same unbearable and isolating pain of having lost a child to miscarriage. A pain that I also hold. This was the second time I have opened my house and my heart in this manner. And the sharing of our stories brings consolation, and hope. It helps heal the part of us that says "You have no one to talk to, no one will understand." None of us would have been able to experience that grace, if I had been afraid to share my story. 

But that's what the Devil wants, isn't it? For us to feel isolated, and alone, and like our sufferings are nothing like anyone else's, or like there is nothing you can do about them. That we have to carry them ourselves, leaving us too afraid to reach out for fear of ridicule and rejection. His main goal is to separate us from the Love of God, and he knows better than any of us how people are the best conduit of God's Love. The best way to counter that is to have the courage and humility to share our story, to share ourselves. 

Honestly, I had first noticed this when I started to share my struggle with depression, but it took my miscarriage to really drive the point home. At some point, I will share that here, and finish my Ashamed and Afraid posts, among others. But the basic gist is: YOUR STORY MATTERS. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IMPACT IT COULD HAVE ON SOMEONE. DON'T BE AFRAID TO SHARE IT. *ahem* Done caps locking now. 

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