“Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is a writer, some are written in the books and some are confined to hearts.”
― Savi Sharma, Everyone Has a Story
Yesterday, I went to a small Christmas Bazaar. It was a home school event with about 12 tables, a motley crew. There was an assortment of booths ranging from professional-looking tables manned by moms with side-gigs to tables with children selling slime or garage-sale items to benefit various causes. I was there with my mom promoting The Girls Get Together and selling t-shirts to help fund Brandon’s Memorial Scholarship fund.
It was a long day. There wasn’t a lot of traffic. I knew that there wouldn’t be before I went, and I was OK with that. I had prayed that God would help me to see this not as an opportunity to gain business but as an opportunity to carry out the mission of my business, to accomplish the why behind what I do.
The Girls Get Together is a business born out of my love for writing and speaking, but like us, it was also created from dust, the dust formed above my son’s grave. Brandon’s death was a stark reminder that time is short, that our days are numbered, that we never know how long we have on this earth. I have always been surrounded by Godly women who have loved me, supported me, encouraged me, and helped me. So, when my sisters, my mother, and I began to breathe life into this concept, this business, the mission seemed clear. I want to share my stories of life, loss, and laughter to encourage women and to help them grow in their relationships with the Lord and each other.
Some days, though, in the midst of trying to navigate marketing and media, in the process of calculating numbers while creating content, in the grind of weighing expenses against income, it’s easy to forget what this is really all about. It’s easy to think that I am trying to build an email list, garner more “likes,” sell more tickets, gain more publicity, or write more stories. But that’s not what I really want to do at all.
Yesterday, before I packed up the Thirty-One bags with table cloths and picture frames, contact cards and candy, before I laid out a presentation to “sell” myself or even Brandon’s t-shirts, I prayed that God would help me to encourage someone, to help someone, to do what I am supposed to be doing, what I want to do, what I am meant to do.
Within just a few minutes of entering the make-shift marketplace, women began to approach my table. I introduced myself, and then, the strangest thing happened. They began to tell me their stories. I listened as a mother spoke of an infant she held for only a matter of days. I heard another women tell me how a near-tragedy helped her young adult child start seeking Christ more. I spoke with a talented woman who is using art to help heal her emotional wounds and an author whose heart is more focused on mothering than marketing these days. I talked with a woman whose teenage nephew had recently died in a car crash and another whose father had taken his own life. I heard about a young mother whose husband had died when her son was less than a year old and another mother whose son suffers from a terminal illness.
As I greeted the women who came by my table, as I listened to their stories and shared my own, as I looked around the room at the families that were represented there, I was reminded again that loss is universal and that each of us has a story to tell.
We all carry joys and heartaches, laughter and sorrow, a lifetime of stories, often untold, and always hidden in our hearts. There are some hurts that cut so deep that there is no balm, no magic elixir, no medicine to make it all better. But, no matter how difficult our circumstance, no matter how painful the present may be, there are others who know the hurt, who have experienced it and have lived through it.
For those of you who listen to or read my stories, I am forever grateful. For those of you who share your stories with me, I appreciate it more than you may know; I consider it an honor and a privilege. If you are in a season of struggling, as so many of us are, please remember, though the journey is hard, we gain strength from our faith and from our fellowship. Sometimes the best gift we can give each other is simply the gift of conversation—the communion that takes place when friends intentionally listen and then compassionately speak.
How can I encourage you and help you grow in your relationship with the Lord and with each other?