The Story of Life

By Joel McKerrow

I’ve learnt in my time that everyone has a story to tell, their story of life, their story of spirit. Should you choose to listen. The stories all hold the experience of life, they all mean something, something deep and personal. Stories that make the tears fall down, make the heart cry in grief. Stories that bring a smile from ear to ear making laughter bubble over.

They all have something to share, something to help you grow.  But, if you don’t STOP.  If you don’t take a while to listen to that very most important story, that glimpse of life they want you to know, then it can be lost in the blink of an eye. If you bar the way to open up and show know love and peace, no empathy, then all can be lost. And you won’t gain anything or give anything in that relationship.
Similarly, it is you that needs to help them. For with stories of past comes stories of present. It is these stories that hurt the most as they are coming now. These are the ones that will rip your heart open and bring tears to your face.

How will you know if you don’t listen? How will you help if you just want to talk about you? The person will get up and leave, their spirit unfulfilled. Listen first, find out there heart, find out their pain and if led to talk then only comfort, never bring shame.

It is then that we can leave an imprint on peoples lives, on people’s hearts, on the world’s ideas of life. Only when we stop and listen, when we connect. When we let them pour out.

Don’t miss it.

Remember the effect you can have on them and remember the effect this one poor soul can have on so many others. Look beyond the horizon. Look beyond your point of view and you will see the purpose that is there for you. As you show someone the love that you have for him or her, the love that God has for them. It is then, when we start to help individuals, that we will see changes within them, within the church, within society and with in ourselves.

When we can reach people in this way we can leave an imprint on their heart that will unburden them later.  It is in this place of openness and honesty and love that we can see the mask being taken down. Only when we stop and listen and love. It’s then that people will show the cancer in their soul. It is then that people will show the cracks in their life, their fatal flaws and their joys and their dreams. It is then that they open up leaving themselves totally naked, totally bare, allowing us to touch and imprint their souls in a most definite way.

Just the other day I was walking out of my unit in a furiously busy state of mind, thinking of all that had to be done. Passing by my elderly neighbour I greeted him with the usual “good morning,” and asked what he had planned for the day. He was putting out his rubbish and said to me, “I got nothing at all happening,” I said back to him, “Really? You gotta be doing something.” He paused from pushing his bin, looked straight up at me with heavy, sad, world weary eyes and as I headed for the car he said, “If I didn’t have to push this bin out today, I would have nothing at all to do…My life is over mate.”

He placed the bin down and walked off and I just kept on going. Walked straight to my car and hopped in. My heart began to really cry for the old man as I headed off to church. And I just felt rotten to the core. “Where would Jesus be” kept on racing through my head…He certainly wouldn’t have just walked off as I did.

That day I made a commitment to go and ask him over for a meal. The next day as I knocked on his door and he opened up the brightest smile came across his face as I asked him over for lunch. He was over the moon with delight. This man literally had no one left and just by having this little bit of interaction his day was totally brightened. He came over and we ended up talking for hours about life. The great thing was that he was the one that did most of the talking, I just sat back and listened. And as he shared his story of life with me the mask came down, he shared about his struggles and pain and for a brief moment we truly connected. I didn’t really get to share verbally about God on that day, in some ways I wish I had. Yet, I also know that the Spirit was there and his life was touched with the love of God. That is what its all about.

So don’t just walk past a crowd, don’t just look dumbly into the faces of the people that surround you. These people were sent here for a purpose, as were you, and if you can see through their masks, if you can let them open up, then that pain may be taken away. Even if only for a brief moment, if only for that tiny second, perhaps that time will grasp at their heart later, gnawing at their soul until they give in and let the light overtake them. So don’t look past people, look at them. Become involved with their lives, not seeing them as just another person. See them as someone you can connect with, someone you can help and see changed. See them as someone with a story of their own. See them most importantly as someone who needs to fall deeper in love with Jesus!