When You Want to Hide Your Story

 

As I sat outside the conference room counting the minutes until my appointment, the tension was palpable. I tried to make nervous conversation with the woman sitting across from me, but my mind was too scattered.

What started as chit chat about the organization of the conference quickly fizzled into talk about nothing at all. I smiled and looked down at the folder containing my proposal.

I hoped it wouldn’t be long.

As if hearing my silent plea, the host called my name. I was ushered into a large room with a partition down the middle.

A young editor with long brunette hair and a warm smile greeted me with a firm handshake. Within five minutes, I gave her my story. My pitch.

All of the long hours, the tears, the research, doubt and fears were now lying on the table between us.

After just five minutes. There on the table.

I surprised myself with raw emotion as I held back tears, and when I looked across at her, I could see she was holding them back too.

I felt a strange sense of release. It was out there. My story. My song.

What I’d gripped so tightly to for so long was now in the hands of someone else, but instead of feeling anxiety, I felt relief.

I was perplexed. After all, I didn’t know what she would do with my story. She might stash it away in a folder somewhere, never to be seen by anyone but her.

She might love it, but be unable to market it. I simply didn’t know.

For a brief instant, I longed to tuck my story back into a safe place. To keep it in the loving embrace of the folder where it could never be criticized, rejected or forgotten.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We clutch tightly to our stories, telling ourselves that they’re not good enough or riveting enough or sad enough.

So we keep them tucked away where no one can see or hear them, convinced that no one will ever know or care.

I hear the distress on the Facebook thread, in the comment section on a popular blog, at the MOPS meeting and at church.

“My life is boring. I don’t have anything to offer.”

Perhaps no one ever told you. Perhaps you are in a household where no one sees your work or your value, and you’ve begun to question it yourself.

Maybe you grew up in a home where you were under the constant shadow of a sibling who begged for attention while you wondered when someone would notice your struggle.

Friend, can I tell you something? Can I grip your face and repeat this until it sinks into the depths of your being?

Your story is exquisite because of the One who’s writing it.

You don’t have to do enough, be enough, or strive until you have nothing left to give and are bone dry to the core of you.

Your Redeemer lives so that his Spirit can live through you, counsel you and help you be everything you were created to be. It is He who will complete the work and see it through till the end.

You are enough because Jesus is enough. Plain and simple.

Whether you’re evangelizing thousands, meeting fellow believers underground in a foreign land, or scrubbing dishes with a toddler tangled between your feet, your story matters.

It matters even when you receive that email from the editor who was on your side, but the numbers weren’t. It matters because God isn’t finished with it yet. If you grip it too tightly, it will never soar and take flight the way God intended.

So let it go. Watch it glide. And see God take it to places you never dreamed.

 

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