We all have a story to tell

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess, the fairest in all the land! She loved all those in her kingdom wholeheartedly and made sure that no one ever went without. She lived to please the people and they were grateful for it.

One day some settlers came to her kingdom from a faraway land. The Princess welcomed them with open arms even though many of her magistrates warned against it.

“They do not appear to have good intentions Princess!” they proclaimed.

But the Princess, full of love to share with all, ignored their warnings and welcomed the settlers in with open arms.

Life in the kingdom was forever changed…"

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This is the beginning of my fairy tale story and although I may not have finished writing it out today, I’m totally aware of the yucky middle and what is becoming a way better ending. We all have a story to tell, no matter how flowery or gory it may be. 

The other night I was out with my cousin and our conversation turned to truth pretty quickly and very unexpectedly. We went just deep enough to scrape the surface of some of the challenges I dealt with in my early adult years. It was so hard for her to comprehend that I, Mel Lee, could ever go through such a challenge that we found ourselves going back and forth regarding the reality of it all. All I could think was, we all have a story to tell even if we don’t look like anything we’ve been through. Cliché or not this is my truth!

We all have a story to tell, whether we are ready to share it with anyone or not. We all have successes,

challenges and ups and downs. We all have things we don’t mind people knowing about and we all have those secret matters that we couldn’t even fathom dealing with in our own personal time. [Might have to go read the week of Le Hair Struggle for this one]

You have a story to tell! One that has been consistently written since the day you were born. Every happening in your life has formed a chapter in the book of (insert your name here). 

Whether awesome: losing first tooth, awesome Christmas, trip to Disneyland, first kiss, graduations, marriages, super vacations, grand accomplishments, finding Christ etc. 

Or the complete opposite: abuse, death, loss, divorce, rape, assault, addiction, having to drop out of school, being kicked out the home, broken hearts etc 

Truth is even the way I categorized the above may be totally different for some people and that’s okay! These specific stories and how we categorize them have ultimately made us who we are today, whether we like the person we’ve become or not. Must we be bound by our past and never have a decent life? Of course not! When we are ready to be free from negative holds of our past then we will be. It takes desire, time, persistence, and trust but it can happen. 

You may feel just how I do saying “I don’t look like what I’ve been through” and that’s awesome! But just because we don’t look like it doesn’t mean we don’t have to face it, deal with it, embrace it, take from it what we need to take from it to be great, and use it to help other people!

Our stories shape us but so does what we do in the present. What are you doing to change your story into everything you want it to be and more? I believe you can have your cake and eat it too. I believe that you can have a fairy tale ending. I also believe that ending may change several times the more you get to know and love yourself and the Lord. You can have a great ending but I think it’s important that we are able to go back to the beginning of the story and review what has already been written. I know that probably turned somebody all thee way off! Come back on, come back on!

If you were to write your story out today, would it be a full-length book or would you cut so many chapters out because of the difficulty you have in dealing with them that it becomes just enough for a 140 character twitter status? Or would you fill up the pages knowing that at some point one of those chapters, no matter how painful, exhausting, embarrassing, or intense might help the most random person LIVE?

I’m not asking you to write a memoir today, just to answer those questions. What would you do? Oh, and be honest with yourself =)

So this is the topic this week. The rest of the week will look a little something like:

Monday: Don’t shut em up!
Tuesday: It doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s so stop comparing it!
Wednesday: Hide your testimony take a life?
Thursday: It ain’t for everybody
Friday: Who gives a flying panda what they think?
Saturday: What is your testimony?