Telling My Story – The Journey, Part One

As I begin, I understand the next few posts will be my most personal series of posts yet. I say yet, not ever because I have accepted that I will go as deep as God wants me to go. When I started this journey of sharing my writing publicly, I never intended to share deeply personal experiences. I have no interest in that level of vulnerability. I just wanted to encourage people to choose to walk with God.

After being led by the Holy Spirit, I authored a book, “From the Wilderness to the Narrow Path: A Journey of Surrender and Course Correction.” This required me to share more details than I had ever shared about my personal life. Now as I share my book with others on various platforms, it is being taken to another level where I must share even more.

God helped me to understand several things regarding the purpose of sharing.

• God knew me and set me apart before I was born. Each day of my story was written before one of them came to be. The same applies to you.
• During our formative years, choices are made for our lives that we have no control over. What matters is what we do when we gain control.
• When I did gain control, out of ignorance of God’s plan for my life, I made several poor choices over the years. Because I am human, I am not immune to making more poor choices.
• I own my story. I am responsible for choices I have made in the past and choices I will make in the future.
• Now that I have surrendered to God’s will, I have returned the rights to my story to Him and His authority. I still have ownership because I have free will, but I want the story He has written for me, so I will be obedient to His leadership and authority.
• He has a purpose for giving me the task of sharing my story.
• I have an obligation to share my story with integrity.

In my book, I share three areas of my life that have been the biggest hurdles. Relationships, finances, and weight. God used the most pressing issue – relationships, to break me down and get my full attention. It was necessary to push me to the end of myself and make it clear that I had two choices. I could continue trying to do things on my own and making a mess of it, or I could relinquish control, allow God to have full reign in every aspect of my life, and do the work He put me here to do. I chose the latter. I understand why the priority was relationships. I needed to understand things about my relationships with people to fully commit to my relationship with God. Nothing is ever wasted.

I cannot say God never gave me a heads-up about what was to come. It’s funny how that works out. In one of my final conversations with the man I refer to in my book as “Sanjay,” I said the words, “I guess I can tell my story now.” Those words passed my lips without thought, and I had no idea what I was talking about. Who was I going to tell my story to? I am private with details of my life, and I was busy protecting his secrets as well. I decided the statement must have come from a place of hurt. Although I would never do so, my human nature wanted Sanjay to live in fear that he would be exposed publicly in the worst way possible. That logic sounded reasonable enough to me.

He later said from that point, he considered me to be his enemy. I found that interesting. While I did make poor choices in getting involved with him, I never lied to, manipulated, or deceived him in any way. He lied to, manipulated, and deceived me, yet I became an enemy because I called him out and held him accountable for his lies. I had finally stood up for myself. I began to understand the importance of telling my story.

During the process of healing, I asked God several questions because that experience shattered everything I believed about people, who they are at their core, my life, and my purpose. I wrote about my experience. Because it was private at the time, I wrote every detail, not caring if I wrote something that would defame Sanjay. It was cathartic and helped deal with any residual anger or unforgiveness that still lingered. Finally, full healing had taken place.

God then made it clear I was to author a book. While the book is not about my experience with Sanjay, as the catalyst that made me face my two choices, there was no way to exclude him. Believe me, I tried.

Once I accepted there was no way to exclude him, I was able to scale down what I had written and share what was necessary for the story of how God got my attention, offered me the proverbial red pill, and led me to the narrow path. If you are not familiar with the red pill reference, please watch or rewatch The Matrix. I refer to the red pill often, and that movie, the first one, is a great resource for understanding the matrix known as this world we live in…but I digress.

After reading or listening to this, you may wonder why I am writing more about it if I have already shared what needs to be shared in my book and have healed from the experience. Go figure. I thought I was finished with it as well. I was not expecting to share anything else. I suppose God was like, “But wait, there’s more!”

I don’t know why God’s plan for my life requires this level of vulnerability but I’m going to be obedient, continue to share my story with integrity, and trust that it will encourage those who God intends for it to reach. Stand by for part two where I will go deeper into my story, and why you have a story to share also.

Your time spent reading this post is deeply appreciated. If you prefer to listen, all blog posts are accessible on SoundCloud.