ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
October 20, 2022
One of our members, Bob Shook, shared some of his life story with the Men’s Group yesterday. A few of the men have taken 20-30 minutes to share some of the more impactful moments of their lives. It has been fascinating, while also reminding me of just how important our stories are. Even the sad or painful moments of life are part of who we are, and we can’t just erase them or lock them in some hermetically sealed box where they no longer impact us. It would be nice, but our stories are forever our stories. It usually takes time, counseling, support and prayer to disempower those painful events in our lives. Yes, they still happened to us, and we remember them, but they no longer hold power over us on a daily basis. In the Book of Ecclesiastes we read how there is “a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away…” I think there is a time for us to feel the pain and hurt and anger viscerally, and then there is a time to remember the event without the event owning us. Of course, between those times there is usually a lot of work—spiritual and emotional sweat and toil. Yet the goal is health and wellbeing, and telling your story is part of the journey between one moment of time and another.
Guide me to a place, Good and Gracious God, where the painful stories of my life are no longer the most impactful stories of my present or my future. Amen.
