I have always loved listening to stories, especially funny ones. I have always loved telling such stories as well.
Recently I have discovered the power of writing stories in my own life. Not just funny stories. For many years I told stories about others; especially about my friends mired in poverty in Central America and Mexico, hoping to elicit compassion on my hearer’s part. Unfortunately, the more I told THEIR story, the more I repressed MY story, especially my anger toward the injustice contained within the stories I was telling.
So I started to write my own story, interwoven with my experiences with the “other” in Central America and Mexico. As I wrote and reflected, I saw how God was at work within my stories, even the ones that made me the angriest. The process has been transformative. This is why I resonate so deeply with Kevin Kling’s quote in an interview with Krista Tippett on APM’s radio show, “On Being.” He said, “When I turn something into a story, it doesn’t control me anymore.”
The power of story has transformed my most negative emotions and repressed feelings into something positive so that they don’t control me any more.