To Be Told: A Sacred Space
A letter from our Director, Margaret
Adam Young in his popular podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves, makes 2 claims 1. You’ve got a story and your story matters. 2. The only way to experience change in your heart is to engage your story.
This was my hope in starting a To Be Told group 10 weeks ago. I wanted to create space for people to engage the stories of their lives, to see the truths and lies they believe and to see God’s redemptive hand. However, I was a bit intimidated doing the group over Zoom. Each week I wondered (and worried) how in the world we were going to connect deeply through a computer! You don’t have the luxury of side talks to get to know each other or the corporate little laughs that help bond a group. Instead we would have 8 boxes with faces and the mute button on if it wasn’t your turn to speak! I was hesitant and doubtful but at the end of each group I was absolutely amazed at what God had done in two hours! Each week felt like sacred space.
One beauty of Zoom is that we had people from all over the world in our group. Literally! We had a total of 8 participants from North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and 2 from the Czech Republic. We used Dan Allender’s book and workbook, To Be Told as the guide for our meetings. We spent the first part of each group sharing and answering a variety of questions that helped us dive into the stories of our past and how they impact us today. We explored the three aspects of attachment and learned our styles of relating and even asked friends to share how they experience us. (This took a lot of courage but everyone was happy they did it!) All with the goal to better understand ourselves. The second part of the group was spent sharing a story from our past. Some of the stories shared were funny, some encouraging, some inspiring and many left us in tears hearing stories of pain, struggle, longing and abuse.
Dan Allender says, “When we enter the agony of our souls, we learn more about ourselves and about a good God who for some reason allows evil to exist but who also works to redeem it.” Given the opportunity to share our stories with others, others who can hold the beauty and pain of our stories, miraculous things can happen. We begin to see ourselves in a different light, a more true light of who we are and who God created us to be. Curt Thompson in his new podcast Being Known states, “we tell our stories more truly when it’s told with others because they can mirror back emotions, thoughts, feelings, things that we may not have seen ourselves. Others help us tell the story more truly.” God created each one of us to be known, seen and loved by Him, by others and by ourselves. It is a deep longing we all have. Our To Be Told Group gave us time and space to look back over our lives and share our stories with others. We were able to speak into each other's lives and feel joy at something newly discovered or share in the sorrow and pain of wounds from long ago. The Lord used the time to bring healing, hope and connection. We are designed to connect and the Lord used a computer screen to bring deep connection. It was sacred ground indeed!
“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Ps. 34:5,8
Margaret Whisler
