Our church (www.clpc.org) has designated 2016 the "Year of Story." We're learning how to share our real-life stories with one another and learning how to listen for stories our neighbors, co-workers, church friends, and community are telling. We're learning to understand our own stories and the stories of the world around us, in light of God's big story of grace and redemption in Jesus Christ.
In church circles, it's easier to share stories that have tidy endings. These are stories of answered prayer and spiritual triumph. What we don't share so easily are the stories with tattered edges. These are stories of an absent or silent God - stories of failed relationships or relentless struggles with sin.
Mark 5:24b-34 tells the
story of a woman suffering from past hurts. In anguish for twelve long years,
physically and emotionally, the woman emerges from the anonymity of a crowd to
touch the hem of Jesus' cloak. Exhausted from a life of pain and shame, she
risks it all to share her story with the One who could make her whole. Our church
family can be a place where it is safe to be honest and to be known. We can be
a place where it is okay to not be okay. We can be community living under the
healing touch of Jesus. We do so by mustering courage to reveal the story of
our own hurts and making a safe-space to listen for the hurts in others.
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