Storytelling: Testimony

There are times that I strongly believe that storytelling, particularly when we are relating the episodes of our lives, are really testimonies to God avowing our faith in a way that is so much stronger than any prayer we repeat in the sanctuary. All of the recited prayers in the sanctuary, including the beloved prayer Jesus taught us, are all words taught to us when we were young, and we were instructed to repeat at certain times when our minister or priest was leading us in our religious services. And there is very little in this world that is more thrilling to us spiritually than our community in prayer.

However, and you know with me there is always an however, the sanctity and spirituality of sharing a life story, regardless of how forgetful we may be in telling it, is such a spiritual experience that those sharing and those listening get to experience a slice of a life forgotten and a life remembered regardless of how many holes there are in it, or how many exaggerated boasts accompany the telling. The person sharing the story is reliving an experience that only he or she can tell; she (he) is telling it in her words, with her exaggerations and omissions, but, and this is most important, with her sincerity and emotions.

The tears in the eyes and voice mean that the story being told is part of the history of the family. It may be written down; it should be because it is family. It is the person’s God-given testimony of life. It is a part of life that perhaps a hundred years from now a great niece or nephew will read, shed a tear, and say to himself, “I want to do exactly what my great aunt did in her life.” This is what God wants me to do with my life. My great aunt tells me this.

And so, family life grows from generation through generation. And the storytelling of one generation becomes the testimony for the next. Funny how the word of God spreads.