This is Day 15 of the 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Challenge, as well as my own personal series, 31 Days to Telling Your Story. Find links to the other posts in this series here.
Today’s writing prompt is: WHEN
One of the most common questions I get asked regarding telling one’s story is, “How do I know if it’s the right time to share my story? What if I’m still living it? What if other people are involved who are still alive and in relationship with me?”
What do we do in those situations? What if our stories involve us being hurt by others? What if telling our story risked damaging relationships?
What if we’re still in a dark, difficult season and the emotions involved with our story are just too raw?
What then?
The first thing I would encourage you to do is pray. Pray for wisdom, discernment, and clarity from the Lord. Seek His face. Call on Him for guidance.
Secondly, search your heart. Measure your motives. If you are harboring any hint of animosity, hostility, bitterness, anger, rage, or hate in your heart, now is probably not time for you to share your story in a public setting.
Take some time to journal, converse with the Lord, and perhaps pursue some intentional one-on-one conversations with a trusted ministry leader, accountability partner, counselor, or other individual who might be able to help you work through some of those difficult emotions.
Above all, trust Him with your story. He knows exactly how and when and to whom it should be told, and He will grant you the opportunities as He sees fit.
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Click here for the Table of Contents to read more posts in this series.
I struggled with the when prompt, missed it actually. But I’m glad I came here, because this is a question that comes up and leaves me kind of scattered in my writing. Thank you for this.
You have sound advice. The one thing I lack is someone who can talk with me about writing and counsel one on one. Even my ‘little sister’s can pray for me but she doesn’t identify with the writing side of me. Everything else, yes. I’m in a writers group but we meet once a month but don’t communicate between meetings. I never thought of this idea before. I need to seek someone’s advice and counsel.
I literally was praying this morning asking God—-when is it the right time to tell my story. Thank you for this!