Confession: I wrote all these posts primarily for me. I love that people read what I write, but if it was just me (and my Mom) reading them, it would be just as therapeutic and beneficial for me to get stuff out of my head and on to paper (or technically, into cyberspace, but it doesn’t sound as artsy).

I do hope that someone else will recognize their story in what I write. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to a song or read a portion of a book or heard a movie quote that is telling my own story back to me. It’s like, “yeah, I feel that way. I would never have thought of putting it that way, but that’s me. That’s my story.”

As I was reminded tonight, God’s Word is the only writing that’s living and active. Other books may give you the nostalgic vibes if you revisit them after a number of years, but they’re basically the same. The Bible will hit differently as you get older with verses you may have read over multiple times almost screaming out at you because they’re telling your current story.

I believe the Bible has one meaning that the author, guided by the Holy Spirit, intended for his original readers. I also think that there can be several different applications that will change over the course of your lifetime from childhood to adulthood to old age.

Basically, your testimony is just you telling your story about who you were, how God met you and changed your life, and who you are now . . . or better yet, who you are becoming. A true testimony shouldn’t end with “and now that I know Jesus, everything is perfect and I am suddenly free of temptations and struggles.”

But as I continue to learn, the specifics of our stories may be different, but the themes are the same. The feelings are the same. When we share that part of our story that we swore we’d never tell a living soul, that’s when we find our own healing and someone listening will also find healing.

The point isn’t to tell your story perfectly, but to tell it. I think I heard once that something that is done imperfectly is better than the perfect that never actually gets done. A story or a song or a poem or a picture that’s messy and raw that goes out to the world is better than something that stays in your head because you think it’s not good enough.

Tell your story. No one else can tell it better than you. No one else has a story exactly like yours because it only happened to you. But other people need to hear their stories told through you. So tell it.