I’m going to be honest, I feel pretty cheesy right now. As much as I love writing and stories, I’ve never been one to really enjoy sharing my own. In my head, it sounds like a great idea. But then I give it a little more of a realistic thought and realize that I actually hate that idea. Starting a blog means having to sit down and try to discern what’s going through my mind – and then hitting a little button that shares it with the world. Not just one person, anyone who cares to take a few seconds to read it (although right now, I’m pretty sure I’m closer to the ‘one person’ mark).

That thought is already starting to give me butterflies – the anxious, sick-to-your-stomach kind, not the cute fluttery kind. My approval-craving mind is creeping towards how to best compose each post, how to balance serious and poignant thoughts with witty comedic relief, and how I will ever convince myself to actually hit the ‘publish’ button. Already I’ve spent way too much time re-reading my own words and wondering if this whole ‘sharing my story’ thing is really going to be worth it.

Unfortunately, God has other plans. This past semester, He has taught me so much about the power of stories. During one short week in Belize, our mission trip’s most frequent conversation starter became ‘so, what’s your story?’ and that simple phrase pushed me farther out of my comfortable little shell than I’ve ever been pushed before. It may not seem like that big of a deal to some people, but sharing my own story brought back memories of past experiences that I wasn’t very excited to remember, much less share with others. God used that week to show me His incredible sovereignty in every single moment of my life and His ability to use my brokenness for His glory. But more importantly, He revealed so much of Himself through other people’s stories – my small group leaders, my closest friends, a random girl I found myself sitting next to on the bus on the way back to the hotel. That week He began to cultivate in me a desire to hear the stories of others and learn how to share my own.

Sounds like a perfect “mission trip lesson”, right? Pretty and nice and all tied up with a bow? Not quite. This idea of sharing stories is a lot easier to talk about than it is to actually put into practice. The conviction that God placed on my heart was brutally attacked by the world & my own sinful heart, both of which quickly pulled out the big guns like ‘desire for approval’, ‘fear of vulnerability’, ‘waste of time’ and countless other lies about the consequences of storytelling. In just a couple short months, I went from revealing the darkest parts of me to complete strangers on a dock floating in the Caribbean Sea to barely being able to honestly answer the simple question of ‘how are you?’ to some of my closest friends. I had allowed those lies to seep into my mind and convince me that not even a sentence about how I was doing that day was worth sharing.

I wish I could say that the Lord has fully revealed His truth amidst these lies and convicted me of my sin and I can now comfortably share my story with the Trader Joe’s clerk as she rings up my groceries, but that’s not true. He has slowly started to work on that walled-in part of me, but sometimes it takes time for the Lord to chisel away deeply rooted fears and mold my heart to resemble His just a little bit more. So yes, I’m still working on answering ‘how are you?’ with a little more depth than ‘I’m good! How are you?’. But where God begins a good work, He promises to bring it to completion (Ephesians 1:6). Not on my own timeline, and not to full completion until I’m standing face-to-face with Him, but in His own perfect timing.

God has given me this past month to rest, spend more time with Him, and start to get used to this idea of sharing more of myself with others. The days have been slow and the rest has been sweet, but in 8 short days He will be throwing me into an adventure that will require more trust and vulnerability than I’m used to. I’ll be spending 5 weeks across the Atlantic learning more about the country I fell in love with last summer, meeting new people, working in new environments, and hopefully going on a lot of adventures. As incredible as that sounds, I know that He has not given me this opportunity just to have a good time and check “travel back to Tanzania” off my summer bucket list. This trip will give me a chance to hear so many new stories, share my own, and most importantly tell people about His. As comfortable as the inside of my leetle shell is, He’s going to be pushing me very far out of it and I hope to fully embrace the challenge. Just the thought of what’s to come fills me with just about every emotion you can imagine.

I hope to use this blog as a way to share my adventures and stories with whoever cares to read about them. Prepare to read about the good days, the bad days, and everything in between. They will definitely not be formal, organized, and have a perfect balance of insight and wit, I can promise you that. Maybe they’ll make you laugh/smile/cry (doubtful – I’m not one for tears), maybe you’ll enjoy them, maybe they will simply serve as a great way to procrastinate from whatever else you should be doing. Regardless of what leads you to them, I hope that each one reveals a little more about me and a lot more about Jesus. I can’t wait to see what God does with this blog (even if it just acts as my own memory keepsake) and the next 5 weeks!

– Allie