Stepping Into the Beauty of Our Stories
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Sagrada Familia (“Sacred Family”) in the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. I have visited Barcelona several times due to my husband’s work, but each time I have passed on visiting the unique cathedral. From the outside, (to me) it looked like a brown drippy sandcastle a child would make on the beach only to have the ocean wash it away. It was easy for me to pass on paying the entrance fee, always thinking the interior is probably just as bizarre and haphazard as the exterior – brown, drippy and chaotic. However, on a recent visit, my husband and I decided to give it a try. The audio tour began on the exterior and explained the meaning of the towers, carvings and the very odd, large Christmas tree with white doves. My skeptical attitude towards the building and architect, Antoni Gaudi, softened a bit but not too much. However, to my complete surprise, I lost my breath at the sight of the magnificent interior. It was so incredibly bright and the drippy brown was nowhere to be seen! The sun was glistening through the yellow, red, and green stained glass windows, which gave the interior a soft warm glow. The stunning beauty was hard to take in at first, and my first thought was that this is a tiny piece of what heaven will be like – magnificent colors and shapes at every turn! There is beauty to behold inside brown, drippy chaos.
The feeling I experienced upon looking at the Sagrada Familia is how I first felt when I started to explore the stories that make me who I am today. I neglected buying tickets into the seemingly mundane and unappealing stories that made up my life, thinking they were brown, drippy and chaotic, not something to be explored. However, now that I have done some work in understanding my story, I can see the Lord’s gracious and kind hand in my life. I can see the beauty He has and is weaving together from my past, present, and future. Stories of pain are beginning to be redeemed, and stories of joy are more fully appreciated. Similar to stepping inside and seeing the beauty of the Sagrada Familia, I can see Him weaving together beauty from ashes in me.
This is why I love leading the To Be Told groups every fall and spring. It is a time for participants to begin to understand who they are and how God has worked in their lives. It is a time for people to enter into their own drippy sandcastles and to explore the personal stories that have impacted them and how they impact the way they connect with others today. Every week feels like new sacred ground. If you would like to explore your story more fully, I would love to have you join our next group starting in September - like me, you will be surprised when you encounter the beauty!
