The right author can make any story interesting.

A hotel concierge who becomes an unlikely matchmaker.

A watchmaker searching for a missing piece.

A child phasing through everyday life.

A thirty-year-old rewiring her brain.

The right person can romanticize anything —

because that’s what a good storyteller does.

Good art shows us the best of ourselves,

who we were and who we could be, in a single glance.

Good storytelling lets us experience that glimpse at a slower, more savory pace.

I've always been drawn to story telling. To good art.

I watch too much television, and part of me knows it’s because it feels like a safe way to get lost in the very things I shut down in myself — play, wonder, curiosity, adventure. Stories let me slip into those places without risking anything.

The more I pay attention and the more I heal,

the more I realize good storytelling isn’t meant to replace our lives;

it’s meant to illuminate them.

It shows us what we’re living, not just what we wish we were living.

It romanticizes the ordinary.

The mundane moments and unfiltered details are the ones that actually matter.

Good storytelling urges us forward. It wakes us up to the fact that our own storyline is unfolding inside a grander design.

And in all of that, I keep finding myself pointed back to the best Storyteller.

Over the last few years of healing and seeking and asking hard questions, I’ve been surprised by how many “worldly” voices have quietly nudged me toward Christ as the Author and Shaper of my story.

All the common grace He allows.

All the borrowed capital we draw from without realizing it.

I lived so long in fear:

fear of missteps,

fear of offending,

fear of retribution,

fear of failure.

Fear. Dread. Anxiety.

And then the pain born from those roots.

So I shut things down.

I shut down wonder because I saw the artists wondering.

I shut down curiosity because I saw the seekers getting lost.

I shut down rest because the world called it lazy.

I shut down play because I needed to get it together.

All the while, Scripture called for seeking, testing, playing, resting —

and it felt hollow to me.

That’s for them, not for me.

I need to hold everything together.

If I let go, I’ll fall through the cracks.

But as I slowly made my way back toward wonder, curiosity, rest, and play, I started learning more about faith and healing than I expected.

A therapist tells me, “What you resist persists.”

A yogi tells me, “Accept what is.”

And if I hadn’t gotten curious about what they meant, I might still be walking around with my fingers in my ears yelling nah nah nah nah nah while God whispered,

“Give up. I have you. Let go.”

It’s faint sometimes, but I can hear it now.

So whoever in your life is encouraging you to soften, to get curious, to pay attention —

Listen. You won't fall.

And keep listening until you recognize who’s really calling you:

to play,

to seek,

to learn,

to grow,

to grieve,

to wander,

to heal,

to rest,

to live.

Good storytelling has always been an echo of the one who’s been writing our story all along.

Keep going.