Tell Me a Story.

I love hearing people's stories. I like knowing where they grew up, what they liked to do as a teenager and the name of everyone in their immediate family. Sitting and listening to any part of a person's story, good or bad, is a spiritual experience for me. I walk away knowing that in some way I have experienced God, even when I can't put my finger on it. I like hearing the things that a person picks out as highlights in her life, the people whom she has encountered and has been impacted by in some way. I like hearing how a person reached this stage in her life, why she is in waco, why she chose to go to Baylor/Truett.
I think that I like hearing stories for few reasons:
I like to put people into a larger context than the one that I personally experience them in. Many of us only experience fragments of our lives together. Clearly a person has an entire life outside of the relationship that we share. I think knowing this context adds a great depth to my understanding of a person. People have temperaments, faults, doubts, fears, joys, life events, and meaningful relationships outside of our particular context. All of these things compell a person or drive a person or hold a person back. They free a person or paralyze them. Life context is so interesting and intricate.
Secondly, I have found much of the time that when someone narrarates how they experience life, many times they are narrating how they experience God. They talk about how they have been changed, what causes them to make the decisions that they make. What makes them angry or joyful or sad.
Finally I think that knowing a person's story teaches me how to be a better friend to them. In a few ministry settings I have had people who are basically perfect strangers tell me about intimate details of their life. We may only be in relationship for a few months, but hopefully I glean something from their tale and somehow find what my role should be in their life at that moment.
I find it interesting in many of my close relationships, a person's story comes out over time. Each time a new part comes out, I see a new piece of that person, even the ones that I have known for years. It teaches me something new, thus helping me to love my friend in a new and specific way.
I think that is why ministry is so compelling to me. One aspect of ministry is to hear people's stories...even if it is just a small piece and then respond to them in very specific way. I get to listen in on someone's life and then enter into it. That is an honor and exciting.