RADIATING STORIES OF HOPE
Your Story Matters!
Chronic illness, mental illness, and chronic pain can be isolating and lonely, but sharing our stories can open a door, extend hope, and sometimes spark a life-giving, life-changing conversation with someone else along the way.
YOUR STORY MATTERS
Stories are vital to connection. They are how we relate to and learn about who we are, why we’re here, and how we belong. Stories preserve history and elicit laughter. They plunge us into the depths of ourselves and set us soaring across the skies.
Yet writing our stories can be challenging.
Where do we start? What do we write? Will anyone care? Does it even matter?
Storytelling has become a lost art in an age of sound bites, but have you ever considered that those of us with chronic illness are blessed to move more slowly, to have the gift of time to rekindle this lost art?
Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, there are many ways to share our stories — in writing, through music and art, in drama and photography, by talking one-on-one, or in audio and podcast formats.
Radiating Stories of Hope
Stories connect us to one another, shattering isolation. As we express them, our perspective shifts, and we begin to see, from a distance, what we were unable to see in the moment.
Share your story. We’ve created thoughtful questions and helpful tips to get you started, but remember, these are only a place to begin. Story is where hope begins.
This is your story, and how you tell it, in whatever format you choose, is entirely up to you, but the world is waiting. Your story is a vital chapter in God’s story. And it matters.
FREE PRINTABLES
Story Matters
Creatively Express Your Story
We can feel isolated and powerless when living with chronic illness, but what if your story begins to bridge the gaps? What if your story offers a glimmer of hope to someone standing at the edge of hopelessness?
Kintsugi: The Story of Our Scars
God pursues the places where we have been wounded, weakened, or failed, where we are vulnerable, where anxiety spins and depression sinks, where loneliness is rampant and grief lingers, and where suffering and loss are constant or sustained.
Radiating Stories of Hope
Discover gentle, creative ways to tell your story of faith, illness, pain, or caregiving—and share how Christ meets us with hope and grace in every chapter.
Sharing Your Story
We all have a story to tell, and each one is a vital part of the mosaic, an integral piece of the whole. Incomplete, insufficient, and disconnected on its own, our story connects with others to create an exquisite, complete masterpiece.
Stories, Jesus & Trees
When our roots are grafted to God’s, we are linked to believers around the world and across time. Do you feel disconnected today? Reach out and share the love of Jesus. It’ll strengthen your faith and renew your spirit.
Telling Your Medical Story
What is a Medical Story? For our healthcare teams to build the best possible treatment plans for us, we need to learn to keep well-maintained logs of symptoms (and their severity), medications, treatments, dates, and brief notes. Keep track with our Medical Story Log.
Medical Story Log
Using a Medical Story Log to track the frequency and severity of your symptoms, the effects of medications and foods, and your energy levels from day to day can help you and your healthcare team spot patterns and build the best possible treatment plan for you.
Creative Ways to Tell Your Story
Allegory • UNLOCKING THE DEEPER STORY
Allegory is a beautiful, artistic form of storytelling. Explore your story's difficult, painful, or vulnerable parts from a safer distance and a different perspective.
Poetry as Prayer
Explore the ancient connection between poetry and prayer and discover a gentle, creative way to speak with God—to notice, wonder, listen, lament, and praise.
Metaphor • A Bridge Between Pain and Understanding
Describing pain to someone who hasn’t experienced it is often challenging. Using metaphors can bridge the chasm, reframe our thoughts, and invite deeper understanding.
POSTS
When God Takes Away Our Health …
What was possible for me in this new life, this new-old body? As with everyone whose soul is hidden in Christ, my brokenness has been redeemed.
Your Story Matters • Telling the Story Only You Can Tell
Your story matters—but before sharing, take time to understand it. Explore the power of reflection, healing, and the story only you can tell.
Radiate Love through Intentional Kindness
Sometimes intentional kindness begins without much thought. It’s just a risk and reaction in the moment. Then comes the doubt, the fear. Can I really radiate kindness? But without the risk, there is little hope that the hunger for friendship and connection will ever be filled. But with it we radiate love.
Your Story Matters: Finding, Writing, and Living the Truth of Your Life
Leslie Leyland Fields
Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons
Christie Purifoy
Christie slowly unveils the small trials and triumphs of that first year at Maplehurst–from summer’s intense heat and autumn’s glorious canopy through winter’s still whispers and spring’s gentle mercies. Through stories of planting and preserving, of opening the gates wide to neighbors, and of learning to speak the language of a place, Christie invites readers into the joy of small beginnings and the knowledge that the kingdom of God is with us here and now.
To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future
Dan B. Allender
Would you willingly overlook clear direction from God that speaks directly to you and where you are in life right now? God’s guidance is near at hand. He is not only your Authority, he is also your Author. As God writes the stories of your life, he uses your past to open up your future. It is your privilege to listen to your own story so you can live boldly for the sake of the Greatest Story.
Undone: A Story of Making Peace With an Unexpected Life
Michele Cushatt
Follow a quest to make peace with a complicated life. It is an honest confession of a diagnosis of cancer and the joys and disappointments of motherhood and marriage, ripe with regret over what is and, yet, still hopeful for what could be. Follow a roller coaster two-year journey through the unexpectedness of life with enough humor to ease the rawness of the story.
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