There was absolutely no other way to end the book.

And doesn’t it figure, really, since the tagline of this here blog is every story matters?

Last fall I wrote a book that released this past February. And if you’ve ordered a copy and held it in your hands, you know that the last chapter sums up the previous eight and then challenges/encourages you to go live your own story.

Because you have a story and it needs to be shared, to be offered, to be lived fully.

This is our final Tuesday in our little series of walking through Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between. You can catch up on all of the posts right here at any time, so you’ll always be able to find the free printables, videos, and book excerpts.

Today? Today we get to end it in the very best way:

Giving Him the glory, trusting Him with the pen, and believing that our stories matter.

P.S. Thanks for joining me for a little look into the book each Tuesday! It truly means so much to me that you are here.

Even If Not // chapter nine: live & tell

Stories are one of the most powerful things we’ll ever come across. They can give deep joy, move us to action, and bring us to tears — all in the span of a few moments. Words strung into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters that turn into books take us to places we could never go otherwise. Opening the pages of a book is like entering into a new world.

You are made up of atoms but I am convinced that those atoms tell a story. You are a living, walking, breathing story. Every page counts, every sentence matters, and the question is not if you have a story but what you’ll do with the story you have.

Will you let others read the pages? Will you welcome them in? Will you say “even if not” to the Author and then go one step further and tell the story He has given you to live?

We don’t need another person denying her story in favor of living another’s. We don’t need another story to go untold because of doubts or swirling thoughts that someone else’s story is bigger, better, funnier, more interesting, or sure to make a greater impact.

The story of your life is yours alone and if you don’t live it, no one else will.

Every day you choose to show up to life and love deeply, every time you open up your mouth to tell the truth of what’s going on, you share a chapter with us. Your one wild and beautiful life is the story of your days and we need it something fierce.

But we need you to fiercely love it, too, so turn your eyes away from the stares or the stats and listen to the Truth.

While it’s true that someone could have similar circumstances and life experiences, no one can tell the stories that you have to tell because no one else sees the world in the way that you do.

We need you to live and love like your story matters, and then we need you to tell it. We need your words, your stories from the ampersands that declare that God is good and God is God, even if not.

There are those who will walk where you have walked and stand where you have stood and they are desperate for your story, for your truth and honesty, for your declaration that God is there every step of the way.

Maybe your life is nothing like what you expected. Maybe you’ve been bruised black and blue, you’re drowning in the dark, or you feel too small to be noticed at all. Maybe you’re living in the in between and you don’t want to be there. But these days, they are part of your story. He has given you these chapters to live, He has authored these pages, and every single one matters.

He’s the One writing but He asks you to do the telling.

Video & Free Print

“Too often we compare our beginning to someone else’s middle and our own behind-the-scenes to another’s highlight reel.”

This print is available for exactly zero cents. Just subscribe to the blog {click here or on the image below} to receive the print above + eight others!