In Others’ Words: When Story Conquers Fear

I sat across from my trusted friend Wise Guy recently and told him, “My heart seems smaller.”

Had unrelenting circumstances — mine and others’ close to me — turned me into some emotional Grinch and downsized my heart?

As I talked some and listened more, I realized that yes, fear had crept in and silenced me … that unknowingly I had fallen prey to the lie that what I felt wasn’t worth expressing.

The truth is, all stories are important. The ones we find in libraries and bookstores … and the ones we live out loud.  And yes, even the sad parts, where we struggle and our souls are battered by doubts … yes, those fragments of our stories matter. If we have faith in who we are and Whose we are … and if we stay with our story within the Story, we conquer fear.

And our hearts grow bigger. 

I’ve read fictional stories that have enlarged my heart … yes, yes, I have. But it’s when someone shares their real-life-this-is-who-I-am story with me that I learn what courage looks like … and learn how to face down my own fears. 

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