Encouragement
Everyone Has a Story, and Yours Matters
Even when the world tells you it doesn’t
It might be cliché to say, but every single person has a story.
I oftentimes think: what is so special about me? I am just a person who has been through a mediocre number of hard things in life. I know there are people who have it worse off.
It’s incredibly common to have those thoughts and feelings, but here’s the truth:
It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t been through: your story can still impact someone’s life.
Because out there, there might be someone who has also been through a mediocre number of hard things, but it just so happens that those circumstances are a lot like yours.
My first time experiencing this was when I got onto a stage and shared a message about finding purpose. I talked about how your purpose isn’t necessarily lost, it’s always been there, but it just needs to be discovered. This is something I had been personally working on for a while at that point, and still feel that it’s a reminder for every day.
I felt that it was time to share my journey with others.
What I wasn’t expecting was the rush of people that came up to me afterward, with tears in their eyes, sharing they were feeling the exact same thing.
· That what they were doing didn’t matter.
· That what if their life isn’t amounting to anything?
· What if they were just put on this earth to do the same mundane thing every day until it was time to go to heaven?
I was blown away by the impact of this message that I had thought was just for me. The message that was my own personal battle. And that single moment opened up what has now been years of work of encouraging others to share their stories to help the lives of others. Because I saw what one conversation, one act of vulnerability, did to make people feel better.
Everyone has a story — no matter how big or small — and it matters.
Your experiences — every battle, heartache, joy, sorrow, and victory — can help someone else who might be experiencing the same thing.
To hide your story, to feel that what you have to say is useless, is a blatant lie from the enemy. An enemy who wants to quiet your heart and drive because he knows the impact you can make.
So what is my encouragement for you today?
Share your story. Be honest and vulnerable in what makes you tick, what your battles have been, what your dreams are for the future. I think you’ll be surprised to see that other people need to hear it too.