Don’t Wait Until the Chapter Ends—Tell Your Story Now

Can we talk about the awkwardness of waiting? Because maybe you’ve spoken too soon that you’re cancer-free, changing jobs, building a house, adopting, having a baby, starting (or quitting) that thing. And now you’re not, at least not yet.

You thought the chapter you’re in was about to end. And it would be glorious. But instead, you find yourself on Rough Trail in the middle of Red River Gorge. Intense climbs and descents with few views to reward soon convince you the trail was aptly named.

When you’re hiking, you can chance a kind stranger to offer you a ride back to your car. But you can’t hitch-hike your way out of an unexpected wait or around a mountain of grief. Sometimes life squeezes tight like two rock faces you’ve just got to shimmy through.

It’s one thing to wrestle through the hard steps forward in your quiet conversations with God. But it’s another to explain to everyone else that you’re suddenly uncertain about something you were so sure about yesterday.

I get what it’s like to admit that you’re not, in fact, moving overseas right after graduation. Be a second-time stay-at-home-mom since number three was a surprise—especially when the plan was to adopt the last two.

The truth is that most of the time we’re in the middle of a chapter. It’s messy, and we question whether we’re on the right trail.

When the healing hasn’t come. The answer is still vague. The timeline is suddenly not what you expected. Remember this: You don’t have to wait until this chapter is over to tell your story.

Actually, it’s better if you don’t. Here’s why.

3 Reasons to Tell the Story You’re Currently Living

1. Humility Makes Space

It’s not just you bucking against a never-ending chapter. Most of us can relate because we are there, or we just were. And though it’s tempting to keep quiet until we’re in the next chapter, something better happens when we’re bravely vulnerable: connection.

Humility bends the ear, locks the gaze, acknowledges someone else’s pain. Says “There you are,” “I’m here too,” and “Let’s sit together.” Dismantles walls that have gotten in the way of the deep knowing and being known we’re all after. Makes space for others around the table.

Humility says “There you are,” “I’m here too,” and “Let’s sit together.”

Tell only your wrapped-up and packaged-pretty stories and you can stay hidden. But trust others with your gritty confessions of learning to trust God in the messy middle, and you’ll find you’re not alone.

2. Honesty Gives Permission

I’m sick of pretending I’m always okay. Downplaying the struggles. Shouldering it all. And I’d guess that you are too.

But sometimes you need a brave soul to go first. Tell the middle of her story while she’s still living it. Show you how she’s learning to trust that God’s not done yet. Let you see the process and not just the finished product.

Authenticity is a hand-written permission slip slipped into someone else’s hand. Borrowed confidence. An invitation to peel back layers cushioning the break, grief, disappointment, ache. To talk real with God because it lets Him into the closed-off places that keep us stuck.

But chances are, if you need another soul willing to be honest, someone out there needs you to go first.

3. Here-and-Now Moments Are Discipleship Opportunities

We come now to reason number three of why to share your story before the chapter’s over: the moments we’re living and breathing are prime opportunities for discipleship. I’m not talking about the kind of discipleship that is rote and far removed from the complexities of actual life. I mean the up-close kind that walks the same dusty roads, sinks tears into shoulders, and has as many questions as answers.

Organic discipleship looks like opening your life and your faith walk to other people. Letting them know the things you can’t reconcile yet, the questions you’re asking God, what you’re learning to believe is true of God, you, all of us. Sharing the down-beneath things at the root of your bad habits and fears.

It’s not posturing yourself as a know-it-all, but a life-long learner. It’s not being perfect, but honest. Not smarter, but humbler.

This is where we get real with God and real with the people right in front of us. It’s also where the things God is doing inside us, though still in-process, ripple out beyond us and draw others to Jesus.

To The One Walking Rough Trail

So you, stuck on a path you didn’t anticipate, in a chapter longer than you expected, don’t fight the wait.

As Jennifer Dukes Lee says in Growing Slow, “An unexpected life is not the same as a bad life . . . . I would have rushed through the seasons that hurt the most, rather than staying in the rearranged places where God chose to come close” (pg. 52).

There’s good here amongst the hard. God’s here too, and that’s a story worth sharing.

Let’s pray.

Lord, give us the courage to share what You’re teaching us while it’s still fresh. May we sit at shared tables, slip each other permission to be humans learning to adopt Your nature, and lean into the present opportunities to point others towards You. May our hope in You be contagious.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

Missional Neighboring 101

This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Download your FREE sneak peek today! Also, get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.