Life is God’s way of making stories.
Our journey through life takes us through events and experiences that create those stories. Things that we do, people with whom we interact, places that we go, all take their places in our stories. In the end all these stories weave together like a puzzle to tell the story of our life.
If we are lucky, we get a chance to tell those stories. Maybe to friends and associates, surely to family and hopefully to sons and daughters who will value them and pass them on down the line. By absorbing our stories, these listeners will understand who we are more deeply and thoroughly than is possible in any other way. They will come to know the story of our life through the stories of our life.
I guess I have always liked to tell stories from time to time. But I never understood how much I like it until I joined Toastmasters. When I started making speeches regularly before groups, my main source of material was the experiences of my life. Not that I thought my life was anything special. That was just one of the tips provided in the Toastmasters program. Talk about what you know best. And what we all know best are the stories of our lives.
Over the last few years, as I told these stories, I started getting some pretty good feedback from other club members. I know that, at least at first, many of these comments were just words of encouragement and polite compliments. But over time I sensed a little more than that, I think.
Those positive and encouraging comments motivated me to test the waters with a larger audience. That’s where this blog of those stories comes in.
I hope you enjoy reading them.
