All of us have a story. For some of us, like me, we are still in process - the story is still being written.

Take a minute and reflect on your life. Think about your childhood. Maybe there are deep dark secrets there, pain & hurt, neglect from a parent. Look back at your teenage years. Maybe you can recall some bad choices, a bad crowd you were hanging around with, or words that you spoke so quickly that killed someone at their soul - and now you wish you could take it back. Maybe you had a dark addiction or secret eating away at you through your whole life. Maybe you hurt someone as an adult, or you yourself were hurt. All of us have a story. And all of us have to tell it.

God uses the pain of our lives in unfathomable ways. I have a testimony. It’s still in the infancy of being shared, but with each person I share it with I find God opening up the floodgates in other people’s lives in unbelievable ways! I get so excited I want to share it openly with the world. But it’s not time yet. God’s still refining me and my story.

Maybe you are afraid. Maybe you say, “What will people think of me? I can’t be that open, I’ve worked too hard to put the person I was away. I hate to even think of the way I was - the things I’ve done! When I do I feel such shame and regret!!”  The shame and regret were with me too, until I opened my mouth for the first time. Then like a river, God swept all that shame and regret and replaced it with a sense of urgency and purpose - this is my story, and I must share it.

Since this happened, I can probably count twenty people I have shared my story with….and am amazed that they are so much like me and they can’t believe the connection. By me being real, the fear of them being real is gone…and God’s true work can begin in their lives.

You HAVE to open your mouth and share your story. Maybe you aren’t where you want to be, maybe you are scared….but just understand the devil would like nothing more than to keep you silent. I was silent for 11 years. Now His glory can shine through me.

So what’s your story?

A friend of mine turned me on to a book a few weeks ago by Max Lucado. It’s called Give It All to Him. Bottom line, BUY the book. It’s $3 and will take you about 30 minutes to read it. Here are the highlights which really moved me:

 The Pelicano is the world’s most unwanted ship. The problem isn’t the boat itself, it’s because it’s full of trash. 15,000 tons of trash that has been sitting on it since 1986. Trash-filled ships don’t find friends, and neither do trash-filled hearts. Do you find yourself drifting further and further from friends and family? What kind of trash are we talking about?

-Today’s jealous becomes tomorrow’s temper tantrum
-Today’s bigotry is tomorrow’s hate crime
-Today’s anger is tomorrow’s abuse
-Today’s lust is tomorrow’s adultery
-Today’s greed is tomorrow’s embezzlement
-Today’s guilt is tomorrow’s fear
-Today’s thoughts are tomorrow’s actions

What’s inside your bags?

LONELINESS
It’s the cry of the abandoned child. The divorcee. The empty mailbox, the quiet home. A one-night stand, a forgotten birthday.  You can hear these cries if you listen hard enough. They are everywhere.

WORRY
The What-If’s, the How Will’s….anxiety. High blood pressure, sleepless nights.

PAIN
Abuse, betrayal, taken advantage of…and now you are angry. Maybe the pain is old, maybe it is fresh. You are broken and bitter.

RESENTMENT AND REVENGE
Resentment is the cocaine of emotions….we need larger and larger dosages to fuel it. And the bitterness becomes an addiction. Hatred is the rabid dog that turns on its owner. Bitterness is drinking poison hoping it will kill someone else.

FAILURES
If you could just do it over again…you’d do it different. You’d be different.

It’s time to take out the trash….

Jesus wants your trash. He says in Matthew 11:28 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The following is a story picture that Max Lucado paints which brought tears to my eyes and I realize how Jesus took upon our sins and “rubbish” upon Himself…I hope it blesses you as it did me:

The landfill is tall with trash - papers and broken brooms and old beds and rusty cars. By the time they reach the hill, the line to the top is long. Hundreds walk ahead of them. All wait in silence, stunned by what they hear - a scream, a pain-pierced roar that hangs in the air for moments, interrupted only by a groan. Then the scream again.

HIS.

As they draw nearer, they know why. He kneels before each, gesturing toward the sack, offering a request, then a prayer. “May I have it? And may you never feel it again.” Then he bows his head and lifts the sack, emptying its contents upon himself. The selfishness of the glutton, the bitterness of the angry, the possessiveness of the insecure. He feels what they felt. It is as if he’d lied or cheated or cursed his Maker.

Upon her turn, the woman pauses. Hesitates. His eyes compel her to step forward. He reaches for her trash and takes it from her. “You can’t live with this,” he explains. “You weren’t made to.” With head down, he empties her shame upon his shoulders. Then looking toward the heavens with tear-flooded eyes, he screams, “I’m sorry!”

“But you did nothing!” she cries.

Still, he sobs as she has sobbed into her pillow a hundred nights. That’s when she realizes that his cry is hers. Her shame his.

With her thumb she touches his cheek, and for the first step in a long nighttime, she has no trash to carry.