Personal news: I’m a great-grandmother!

 

Our oldest grandchild just gave birth to little T.T., making my husband and me great-grandparents! His birth has been a joyous event for this big family. We’re all celebrating.

 

And once again I am convinced that we—you and I—must share our stories with our families.

 

Tell me: Did you know your great-grandparents? Mine died before I was born.

 

If you never knew your great-grandparents, perhaps, like me, you have many questions—about their personalities, talents, experiences, values.

 

I’m also very curious: Am I shy like one of them? Am I afraid of something that one of them also feared? Is my dry sense of humor like theirs? Do I look like one of them, speak like one of them, think, love, or giggle like one of them? Do I instinctively treasure something one of them also treasured?

 

Maybe, like me, you wonder: If they’d have known me, would they have loved me? Would we have enjoyed each other? What activities would we have done together? What would they have taught me?

 

Did they love and serve God? If so, how did that impact the ways they chose to live?

 

What stories about themselves and their ancestors would they have told me? What adventures did they have, what challenges, what heartaches? What failures, what successes? What obstacles did they overcome?

 

And this is so important: If I had known their stories, what lessons would they have taught me?

• How would I have lived my life differently?
• Would I have avoided certain mistakes?
• Thought differently?
• Sought different goals?
• Chosen a different profession?
• Been a kinder person?
• A better spouse?
• Parented my children differently?
• Had a stronger faith and commitment to God?

There’s a reason Jesus said, “Go, tell your family everything God has done for you” (Luke 8:39). Write your stories for your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. It’s the most important job in the world. (Be sure to click on that link.)

 

Include humor, mystery, romance, pets, childhood escapades, teenage pranks, athletic competitions, parenthood, hard work—the list could go on and on.

 

Always examine each account, connect the dots,

and explain what God was doing through them all,

often behind the scenes.

 

If you’re about my age, you realize you might not live on this earth much longer.

 

“We will all die one day. That is one of the few things we can be sure of,” Henri Nouwen wrote.

 

“But will we die well? That is less certain,” Nouwen continued.

 

“Dying well means . . . making our lives fruitful for those we leave behind. The big question . . . is . . . ‘How can I prepare myself for my death so that my life can continue to bear fruit in the generations that will follow me?’ . . . .

 

“Dying can become our greatest gift if we prepare ourselves to die well.” (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

 

Prepare yourself for your death

by writing your stories.

 

Teach your kids, grandkids, and great-grands about keeping a commitment, working hard, being kind and honest. 

Teach them about God.

 

Inspire them to handle tragedies with tenacity and faith.

 

Help them choose courage over fear, generosity over stinginess, integrity over cheating, compassion over meanness, thankfulness over ingratitude, and so much more.  

 

 “The world’s greatest wisdom passes through stories,” writes Kathy Edens.

 

Take in what Kathy says:

The world’s greatest wisdom

can flow through your stories!

 

Back to Basics: Writing dialogue for gut-wrenching scenes

 

Recently I mentioned writers can use dialogue to convey grief, terror, or other emotional situations. Below is an example from The Letter Keeper by Charles Martin.

 

The story is about David Bishop and a priest named Bones who rescued teenage boys and girls who were abused, physically and emotionally, and forced into the sex trade. Some had been kidnapped, others of them abandoned by their parents.

 

In this scene, one night the narrator, David Bishop, and his wife Summer were awakened by their dog and noticed a young lady they’d rescued from sex trafficking, Casey, standing by their bed.

 

“I’m afraid.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“Going outside.”

 

Summer rubbed her eyes. “Why?”

 

Casey glanced out the window into darkness. “’Cause he’s still out there.”

 

. . . Her bottom lip trembled. . . . She waved her hand across the two of us. “I was wondering if. . . .”

 

Casey had one wound left to heal, and maybe I alone had the power to do so. . . . “Can we go for a walk?”

 

Casey nodded.

 

. . . The three of us shuffled . . . out into the cold . . . and into the chapel. . . . I turned to Casey. “I want to ask you a favor.”

 

She nodded above a trembling lip.

 

“One of these days, some young man is going to fall head over heels for you. . . . He’s going to have to ask someone for permission to marry you.” . . . Casey’s head tilted sideways, spilling tears out of her eyes. “And then someone is going to have to give you away.” At this, Casey sobbed and buried her face in her hands. . . .

 

I lifted her chin, knowing there is no deeper pain than that caused by the rejection or abandonment of a father or mother. . . . “Will you let us call you Daughter?”

 

Casey crumbled, hitting her knees, and fell into Summer. . . .

 

. . . “Will you let us adopt you? . . . Will you be ours? Forever?”

 

The sound coming out of Casey’s stomach had been there a long time, and I had a feeling it was the deepest of layers. . . . A beautiful cry. The sound of pain leaving and joy entering. . . .

 

As Casey melted into the floor at my feet, I began to whisper the one word she needed to hear. . . .

 

“Daughter. . . Daughter . . . Daughter. . . .”

 

When I finished, Casey lay in a fetal ball clinging to us. . . .

 

When she emptied herself, I sat her up. “Casey?”

 

. . . “Casey Bishop?”

 

She nodded.

 

“From this moment on, we take you as our own. . . . Forever.”

 

Now read the passage again and note how Charles Martin wrote:

 

• He used few words—his writing style is called “sparce”. He was concise, succinct.
• He used simple words which were, for the most part, only one- and two-syllable words. He avoided flowery and multisyllable words.
• He used no exclamation points. He didn’t need them because his word choices, sentence structure, and context conveyed the emotion and pain.
• He used almost no adverbs or adjectives (modifiers or qualifiers—sometimes called padding or fillers). When you write, use strong nouns and verbs. Rather than saying a person is “very poor,” choose one strong word, such as “destitute” or “impoverished.” Instead of writing that a person is “very worried,” choose one strong word, such as “anxious” or “frightened.” Avoid words like pretty, big, very, small, heavy, really, lovingly, speedily, haltingly.

 

Experiment with your passage to find the right balance: (1) Avoid making light of—or diluting—the seriousness of the situation, but also (2) avoid being overly dramatic. Melodrama is not a mark of good writing.

 

Finding words to write your traumatic accounts 

might be painful for you, even agonizing, 

but I urge you to pray your way through it. 

Take as long as you need.

 

Also recognize the opportunity you have

—as well as the responsibility—

to write your stories.

 

Maybe today you can’t imagine how God can use them

to bless your readers—your kids, grandkids,

great-grands, friends, and even strangers.

 

But keep reminding yourself that

you are part of a story much bigger than yourself.

Writing your memoir is more than a hobby

—it is a ministry.

You have a story no one else can tell.

Take in Erin Morgenstern's words:

“Someone needs to tell those tales. . . . 

For each and every ear it will be different, 

and it will affect them in ways 

they can never predict. 

From the mundane to the profound. 

You may tell a tale that takes up residence 

in someone's soul, 

becomes their blood and self and purpose. 

That tale will move them and drive them 

and who knows what they might do because of it, 

because of your words. 

That is your role, your gift.” 

(Erin Morganstern, The Night Circus)

 

.

 

 

Back to Basics: How do you write about your family’s baggage?

 

Your relatives and mine include a lot of fine people, but let’s be honest: Our family trees include at least a few dysfunctional people—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles.

 

And our generation has skeletons in the closet. And maybe our kids and grandkids do, too. Every family has baggage.

 

You know—

• the one who should have protected you but didn’t
• the bully
• the controller
• the know-it-all
• the manipulator
• the narcissist
• the gossip
• the petty one who always looked for ways to take offense
• the wife-beater
• the critic
• the egotistical and self-absorbed
• the double-crosser
• the drunkard
• the liar
• the murderer
• the adulterer
• the sex addict
• the drug addict
• the thief.

 

Imperfect people have influenced you.

 

Some have played major roles in your life.

 

So . . . how should you write about them

and their baggage?

 

First, examine your motive. That is all-important!

 

Promise yourself to refrain from humiliating anyone. Refuse to get even. Avoid shaming. Remember: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17, 21). (See last week’s post, Don’t start writing your memoir until. . . ”) 

 

Writing a memoir can bring

much-needed healing to you, so that’s good.

 

And you can help break the cycle

of hand-me-down hang-ups

that crippled your family’s generations—

just focus on the right reason

to write about people in your past.

 

“God’s Word clearly expresses what a good and effective teacher the past can be. The past will be a good teacher if we will simply approach it as a good student, from the perspective of what we can gain and how God can use it for His glory. (Beth Moore, Breaking  Free)

 

First, seek to be at peace with God:

 

Recognize that like your family members, you have made and will make mistakes in raising your children and relating to your grandchildren. Your flaws might be different than those of your relatives, but you have your own shortcomings. And failures. And dysfunctions. (Don’t miss an earlier post: A sobering reality: Everyone’s dysfunctional.)

 

Banish bitterness.

Ask for God’s forgiveness.

Accept His forgiveness.

Allow God to wrap you in His grace and mercy.

 

Wrapped in God’s grace and mercy—that’s where you find peace with God.

 

In writing your memoir,

you don’t have to act as if sins against you

and others were okay.

They were not.

 

But I encourage you offer your family members

the same forgiveness, grace, and mercy

God has extended to you.

(You might want to meet with a therapist—

just be sure he or she is competent.

Not all are trustworthy!)

 

Read the following slowly, and then read it again. Take in its message:

 

“Thank God that although you cannot change the past,

He can help you change what you’re doing with it!

And the changes He makes in you in the present

can certainly change the future!”

(Beth Moore, Breaking Free)

 

Next week we’ll continue with insights from William Zinsser, such a dear man, about how to write about those who wounded you. Don’t miss it. His message is powerful!

 

Back to Basics: Use humor “like a sneak attack”

 

Years ago, I ran across a brilliant technique you can use in writing your memoir.

 

Johnny B. Truant told a story from his high school years when 1,200 students gathered for an assembly—but no one knew why.

 

Two men took the stage and, instead of telling why they were there, they told jokes and funny stories, commiserated with students about how bad high school is, and poked fun at teachers and administrators.

 

“We liked these guys,” Johnny said. “They thought like we did. Their stories were interesting and fun. We settled in and relaxed.”

 

“We stopped caring why we’d been called to the assembly. Someone made a mistake and had booked pure entertainment, but we weren’t about to complain.”

 

“But everything changed about halfway through the talk.

“It was like a sneak attack:

it was on us before we knew it was coming.”

 

The guest speakers started talking about AIDS, abstinence, teenage drinking, and drug use.

 

“It was all the stuff that adults usually talk to teenagers about—the stuff teenagers usually roll their eyes at.

 

“But we weren’t rolling our eyes. We were listening. We’d been transfixed.”

 

The speakers didn’t preach that AIDS is something to avoid.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a girl they’d talked about in their funny stories—and told them she died of HIV.

 

They didn’t tell the students not to drink and drive.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a boy they’d heard about earlier in the funny stories—and told them he was hit by a drunk driver and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

 

Afterward, when those 1,200 kids filed out of the auditorium, Johnny says, “Most of the kids who streamed past me were silent or crying.”

 

Those guest speakers had come to urge the teens to avoid dumb choices and reckless living and peer pressure and, instead, to be smart, to make the right choices.

 

Usually, high schoolers thumb their noses at adults who try to tell them such things, “But because they did their selling through stories, we’d bought it all,” remembers Johnny.

 

What do you think? Isn’t that a brilliant technique? A winning method?

 

Using humor in the beginning was a factor in their story’s success—which brings us back to last week’s post and the importance of making ‘em laugh in your memoir.

 

Humor establishes a bond between you and your readers. It makes you seem real. Humor endears you to them. It makes them enjoy you. They’ll remember you and your story.

 

Including at least a little humor early in your memoir can do all that for your readers. (Maybe your memoir does not lend itself to humor—a small number don’t—but I encourage everyone else to consider using it.)

 

If you can get your readers to laugh, they’ll let their guard down a bit. That will make them more interested in what you tell them later—in the takeaways you will offer them. (Click on Your memoir’s all-important takeaways.)

 

Think of this:

You don’t know who your readers might be.

You’re writing your memoir

for people who come after you,

perhaps generations not yet born.

You can’t look into the future

to know what their situations and challenges might be.

 

But you do know everyone has hardships and heartaches.

Everyone needs wisdom to make important decisions

and to live their lives well,

and your memoir’s stories could help readers

find their way through the bumps 

and potholes in the road of life.

 

Remember: God used other people’s stories

to help make you who you are.

Their stories rubbed off on you.

It’s as if other people’s stories are infectious. Contagious.

 

Someone’s story:

• taught you how to be courageous
• showed you how to live an honorable life
• helped keep your faith strong
• helped you not give up hope
• kept you on the right track
• inspired you
• passed on wisdom
• pointed you to God.

 

Now it’s your turn. In the same way other people’s stories helped you, you can help others.

 

Your stories are important, so try the techniques those guest speakers did:

 

Win over your readers with comedy, and then carry out your sneak attack: Bring out the deeper lessons of your stories.

 

To help you get started:

 

Who impressed upon you the importance of safe driving, or standing up to peer pressure, or the consequences of cheating or lying? What are your stories? Write them. Try to include some humor.

 

Who taught you the merits of keeping a promise, or arriving at work on time, or being loyal? What are your stories? Write them. Search for ways to include something funny.

 

If you want to pass on

important lessons

to future generations,

write engaging stories

with well-developed characters.

And consider using humor

to draw them in.

 

Back to Basics: WHEN to write the seared, charred, blistered parts

 

Not all memoirs involve deeply sad experiences. Some are humorous, many are tender. Some are full of adventure.

 

Others, though, include traumatic incidents.

 

And so, today, we’ll look at writing a memoir that includes seared, charred, blistering parts.

 

I’ve seen something happen too often and saw it again when my friend began composing his memoir by writing about the most disturbing year of his life. Wow!

 

When memoirists start by writing the super-painful stuff, too often they become overwhelmed all over again with the devastation they endured—and soon they give up altogether.

 

Don’t let that happen to you.

 

A word of caution:

Re-living and writing about past traumas

can cause PTSD.

Consider seeing a good therapist (not all are good!)

before and during your writing.

 

Begin by composing your easy segments—not the harrowing ones. Write the funny incidents, the fascinating experiences, the happy vignettes. That way you can ease your way into both writing and doing the reflecting that memoir entails.

 

Jot down thoughts, reactions, questions, memories, conversations. Create descriptions of key people (click on “No cardboard characters!”) and of main places in your story (click on “The importance of 'place' in your memoir”). Before long, you’ll be assembling a rough draft of your memoir.

 

You don’t have to craft your chapters/vignettes

in the same order they’ll appear

in your completed memoir.

Write them in any order that’s easiest for you.

Later you can organize them in the best way.

 

My heart wants you to fall in love with:

• pondering,
• and discovering the good stuff you overlooked in the past,
• and making sense of what used to mystify you,
• and discovering how far you’ve come,
• and choosing just the right words,
• and fashioning your memoir as a gift for yourself and for others.

 

For now, give yourself permission to begin with uncomplicated parts of your stories. Tackle the hard ones later.

 

And here’s something interesting: Even if you’re not physically putting your aching, tender, throbbing accounts into words (with pen and ink or on a computer screen), you are working on the story. I can’t explain how that works but, behind the scenes, your heart and brain are working on how to write the troubling stuff.

 

Be encouraged by what memoirist Kathleen Pooler said about writing her two memoirs:

 

“When I first started writing out my stories, facing painful memories was difficult. As I kept writing, new insights revealed themselves to me . . . just through the process of facing them and writing about them. I experienced healing through reading my own words and began to feel I was on the other side of pain.”  (Kathleen Pooler, author of Ever Faithful to His Lead and Just the Way He Walked)

 

If you’re not ready to write, let your heart and mind rest for a few weeks or months—or however long it takes. Pour out your heart to God. Wait patiently before Him, putting your hope in Him (Psalm 62:5-6).

 

He bends down and listens to you. He hears and answers (Psalm 116:1-2).

 

Stay alert. One day you’ll be vacuuming the car, or playing catch with your grandson, or folding laundry, and you’ll have one of those A-ha! moments.

 

Or maybe you’ll hear a song, or someone else’s story, or a Bible verse, or a poem and, out of the blue, God speaks, or maybe nudges, offering you insight and clarity about your hurtful experiences.

 

When that happens, listen. Jot down notes to yourself. You’ll be mining treasures. Later you can use your notes to add to your rough draft.

 

Speaking of your rough draft:

It is for your eyes only.

 

Because of that, you can write it all—the seared, charred, blistered parts, the questions you never had the courage to ask aloud, the doubts you kept secret, the anger you kept bottled up.

 

You will revise your memoir

numerous times before you publish it

so keep this in mind:

You can always delete, or revise,

the bleeding, raw portions of your first draft.

 

For now, just wrestle them into writing, for your own sake. (Review last week’s post about using method writing, a creative, helpful way to recall situations, and then to write about them.)

 

Invite God to sit close beside you. He wants to help you remember, maybe to see things differently, to notice the ways He helped in the past and continues to help you day by day, year by year. He wants you to see there’s a good place for you on this side of your pain.

 

My heart longs for you to experience that “He heals the  brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

 

 

Back to the Basics: Why should you write your memoir?

 

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post after I attended the first meeting of our church’s fall book club, for which they’d chosen my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.  I was happy but also humbled that they chose it.

                                                                                                                                     

Among other questions, they asked me: Why did you write your memoir?

 

Good question.

 

I took time to answer because a memoir—every memoir—can and should be a gift for its readers. In fact:

 

I believe God Himself

dreamed up the idea of memoirs.

If you think that’s a stretch, read on!

 

That evening, I took the ladies back to the beginning of my passion for memoirs—though originally I didn’t even know the definition of “memoir.”

 

It started some thirty years ago. I’d been reading Streams in the Desert, a devotional from 1925 (!) by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (though nowadays they call her L. B. Cowman).

 

Not only have publishers updated her powerful devotional by letting the dear lady use her own name instead of her husband’s, they’ve also updated the wording and Bible version.

 

But I’m still using the old-fashioned version, so keep that in mind when you read what L.B. wrote. It’s based on Luke 21:13 which says, “This will give you an opportunity to tell about Me” (ERV).

 

“Life is a steep climb,

and it does the heart good to have somebody ‘call back’

and cheerily beckon us on up the high hill.

We are all climbers together, and we must help one another.”

L.B.Cowman

 

“This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious,” she wrote. “It takes strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worthwhile, we ought to ‘call back.’”

 

And then L.B. Cowman shares her poem:

 

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;

And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the [lamp] oil is low,

Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

 

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;

Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;

That, when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,

He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

 

. . . But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,

And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—

If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back—

‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

 

That poem—

that thought of cupping our hands around our mouths

and cheering on others

who are coming behind us, struggling up life’s steep trails—

that thought zinged me.

It zapped me.

“Yesssss!” I said.

 

I fought tears when I thought of the people

who had already battled up life’s steep mountain trails,

who then turned to me to show by their example

how to choose courage and faith,

those who shared with me their words,

who cheered me on and kept praying.

 

My heart lurches when I think how my life’s battles

might have turned out

if those dear souls had not told me their story—

they and their stories

kept me pounding one foot in front of the other,

hoping, believing, refusing to give up

because if God had helped them, He’d help me, too.

 

When I first read L.B. Cowman’s devotional that day, I told myself: “A Call Back book! That’s what we need—to share our stories and keep each other fighting the good fight.”

 

Reading that poem was a defining moment for me. For years I thought about a Call Back Book. But the idea was raw and rough. It needed to marinate for a few years.

 

Fast forward twenty years or so. I came upon the following words (words which you know well if you’ve been with our SM 101 tribe for a while): “Always remember—and never forget—what you’ve seen God do and be sure to tell your children and grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

 

When I read those words, they gave me another zing and zap. That was another pivotal moment for me. “That’s it!” I told myself. “That’s what a Call Back Book would accomplish.” My undeveloped concept began to take a more solid form in my mind and heart and vision.

 

And the fact that God told us to tell our stories

to our kids and grandkids—

Wow again! He commanded us to tell our stories.

 

It’s a calling He’s given all of us.

A ministry, not a hobby.

 

I remember asking myself, “I wonder what a memoir is.” I looked up the definition and—Wow again. Memoir was a perfect format for telling our stories. (Click here for the definition of memoir.)

 

And, as they say, the rest is history:

• I started teaching memoir classes for churches and other interested groups,
• in 2010, I published my first memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa,
• I started blogging at Spiritual Memoirs 101 to reach others interested in writing their stories,
• in 2019, I published my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir,
• and I’ve continued to teach online and in-person memoir classes. 

Fast forward to that evening at our church’s Book Club meeting when they were reading my memoir. I was in for a delightful surprise. The ladies started discussing the definition of memoir, and then they realized that each of them had a story.

 

They caught the vision of the importance of telling their stories.

 

In the words of Lloyd John Ogilvie, “ “. . . we can be God’s tap on a person’s shoulder. . . . It’s awesome to realize that God can use us as His messengers, healers, and helpers. He’s up to exciting things, and all He needs is a willing, receptive, and obedient spirit” (Silent Strength for My Life).

 

If you’re writing your memoir,

YOU are those Ogilvie writes about—

YOU are the ones with a willing,

receptive, and obedient spirit.

 

How awesome to realize that

God is using YOU as His messengers,

healers, and helpers.

 

When you didn’t even know God was there: Discovering His fingerprints

 

As you compose your memoir, take special note of what God was doing—even if at the time, His role was under the radar.

 

Maybe what you thought was a mere coincidence was much more—it was God Himself intervening.

 

Lloyd Ogilvie writes about the parable of the Good Samaritan and the phrase “now by chance” in Luke 10:31-35:

 

“Now by chance a priest was going down the road,” as was a Levite after him, and a Samaritan after him.

 

Ogilvie writes:

 

“The Greek word translated by the word ‘chance’

means ‘coincidence.’

But not even that word gets at the core of the meaning

of the Greek word. . . .

It means a confluence of circumstances

which seem to happen by chance

but are really events interwoven

by divine providence

for the accomplishment of a greater purpose.”

(Silent Strength for My Life)

 

Read that again.

 

In writing your memoir, look for occasions when something seemed to happen by chance or seemed coincidental. Ask yourself: Were they, in reality, “events interwoven by divine providence”—by God’s foresight and guidance and plan?

 

Give yourself plenty of time to search for answers.

 

Remember what makes memoir so rich, so special. A memoir goes beyond writing about what happened.

 

It involves discovering the significance of what happened

and what you did about it or with it.

 

Reflection is a key ingredient in writing a memoir. Most people need to work on reflecting because, as Richard Foster observes, “The sad truth is that many authors simply have never learned to reflect substantively on anything.”

 

The remedy?

 

To reflect in a meaningful, deliberate way.

 

Take a closer look at the incidents in your life, your decisions, your relationships:

 

• Consider
• Ponder
• Contemplate
• Deliberate
• Ruminate
• Cogitate
• Wonder
• Mull over
• Chew on
• Wonder about
• Think about
• Weigh
• And study

 

• Look back
• Peel away layers
• Excavate
• Find the gems.
• Dig them out in pieces if you must, but dig them out.
• Inspect them. Look for God’s fingerprints.

 

Spend as much time as you need to make sense of what you discover—to pinpoint those aspects of your life that were indeed not just coincidence, not just something that happened by chance, but were in fact the work of God.

 

This week search for any of God’s fingerprints you might have overlooked in the past. Put in writing how your life changed as a result. How did God use the event to prepare you for the future? Deepen your faith?

 

Think about what Jacob said in Genesis 28:16,

 

“God was in this place and I wasn’t even aware of it.”

When has that happened in your life?

 

Uncover the richer, higher, deeper, wider, broader story,

the story of what God was doing.

 

Discovering that will change your heart and life

in ways you can’t imagine!