We all love a good story, right?
It's pretty much a normal part of the universal human experience to enjoy being entertained by stories. It's why we love going to the movies, or why we get caught up in a good book and can't put it down. It's why we will sit around a campfire for hours, laughing at the ridiculous tales our relatives tell of times gone by. But stories have power beyond simple entertainment. They have the power to disconnect us from our reality and connect us to another's. That's the reason we feel so connected with another human as we sit across a cup of coffee from them and listen to them tell the story of their life. Stories have the power to encourage, to inspire, to give hope. That's why we love things that are "based on a true story." We find strength, meaning, value in stories. Stories also have the power to shock. To horrify. That's why some of us steer clear of scary movies, but ultimately why we're all addicted to Stranger Things. Don't lie. If you're not already there, you should be. You know I'm right. But beyond entertainment, connection, inspiration, or horror, some stories also have the power to shake us awake. To sober us up. To make us aware of our present surroundings. Even to make us feel guilt, or shame, or anger. To be frank, some stories you don't really want to hear. That's why we turn off the news, hide away from reality, look away from people on the side of the road with cardboard signs, scroll past pleas for prayers on social media, ask people to keep their personal lives to themselves. That's why we tend to avoid people who seem to have heavier stories than ours, whose lives are full of pain and regret, who always have something to complain about. Unfortunately, those people are the ones with stories people often turn away from. They are the ones whose voices are never really heard. Their stories are stifled, stuffed away. They are made to be quiet. They are made to feel small. They've been told their stories are "too much." Some have even been told their stories cannot possibly be true. These are the stories we must be willing to listen to. These are the stories that need rewritten. I've heard a lot of stories in my twenty-two years. I've sipped at lots of mugs while listening to storytellers of all kinds pour out their tales. Each of them has been just as important and valid and beautiful as the next. But I spent a whole five months listening to stories like the ones I just described - ones that desperately needed their endings (and beginnings and middles) rewritten. Stories that had been minimized and told to quiet down for years. Stories that were finally breaking through the chains and finding freedom. These stories rewrote mine. My time as an intern at Homestead Ministries in Manhattan, Kansas will forever be etched on the tablet of my heart. I heard stories I never asked to hear, stories I never really wanted to hear, to be completely transparent. Who wants to have someone in the passenger seat of their car speaking candidly, explicitly even, of the abuse done to them, of the torture they endured? Who wants to know that the woman they are sitting next to on the couch was forced to sell her body for money? Nobody wants to hear those things. Because we don't want to be awakened to that kind of reality. We don't want to know that those kinds of stories exist. We don't want to live in a world where those things happen, where people really do hurt like hell. But I heard these stories. I learned to not just hear them, but to really listen. To validate. There is such power in this kind of affirmation. Even if we can't exactly say, "me, too," there is power in the kind of empathy that isn't afraid. That doesn't shy away from the stories that are toughest on our ears and hearts. That seeks to understand and comfort and just be present in a story most people would turn their ears from. There is unmeasurable power in looking at the person filling the space across from us and saying, "I hear your story. And I know that it is true." The power in this kind of hearing, this listening with intention, leads to freedom. When stories of this kind go untold, they perpetuate captivity. I've heard it said that there is great power in simply telling. Telling of our darkness - our struggle, our anxiety, our fear, our whatever - shines light on it. When another person looks at our struggle and says, "Okay, I hear you. I'm with you. How do we walk forward?" the light of freedom is shone brighter than any of the darkness that's been stifling us. But there are people who are still enslaved to their stories. Who haven't told, who cannot tell. Millions of people, in fact. There are nearly twenty-one million victims of human trafficking worldwide, according to the Polaris Project. Fifty-five percent of those victims are women and girls. Twenty-six percent are children. They are in bondage - to exploitative humans, yes, but to their untold stories. They have been duct taped, bound, beaten, manipulated, deceived, raped, clobbered into silence. There are so many efforts being made to free them, so many rescuers pursuing them, so many stories of hope being told. Unfortunately, there are many, many more who are still hidden away. I am ready to change that. Are you with me? For a long time, I knew about these hidden stories but had no idea how to try and make a dent in them. Advocacy is wonderful, awareness-raising is wonderful, and it all helps. But how to tangibly make a difference in such a massive, all-consuming darkness? I felt helpless. One of the most recent ways I am trying to push back the darkness is by patterning with an amazing organization called HiddenGenius. They provide an excellent platform by which change makers can connect to create technology that solves problems in our messy world. My sweet friend Savannah Sherwood reached out to me and graciously asked me to team up with her and HG to lead a campaign in search of someone who can help create technology to combat human trafficking. We would love to see software created or an application developed that helps identify human trafficking offenders, alerts authorities, brings them to justice, frees victims, and overall, reduces the scale of human trafficking globally. There is currently no such technology that has been successful. Such a development would be invaluable in today's efforts to eradicate this horrific reality. Would you join with us in being storytellers for those who can't? Would you do your part to help free the enslaved? Here's what you can do. We need connections. Big or small, we are trying to get in touch with organizations who are passionate about this issue, and companies or people who are capable of developing excellent technology. If you have connections and/or are an excellent networker, please jump in and let us know! We need support. In order to support our future tech developer, we need funding. We are being transparent about our need to raise funds because - let's be frank here - we all hate being schmoozed. So yes, we need your money. Think of it as an investment, one with potentially huge payoffs for hundreds of thousands of people. We need prayer. I might have just lost some of you, but I am a firm believer that this issue goes deeper than the reality that we can see. There is a spiritual war being fought (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) and we need to fight it with the right weapons (Ephesians 6:11-17). If you don't do anything else, please please pray. Here is the link to our campaign page on HiddenGenius. Follow along for updates and more information. Thank you so much for making it this far - you are the few and the passionate who are going to make tangible change happen. We are so excited to be on this journey with you. Please feel free reach out to myself or Savannah with any questions or if you're interesting in getting on board! With all the joy and love He offers, Wheeler Crimm
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I read a quote recently that has since stuck with me, and it went something like this: "What distracts you will ultimately define you." When I say this stuck with me, I mean that it hit me like a bag of bricks in the face. I have been incredibly distracted lately. Not by anything particularly “bad” or “evil.” Actually, by something that has potential to be a really good thing. A gift, maybe. But the distractedness has led to selfishness. To self-protection. To overthinking. To white-knuckling the situation. To anxiety. I have failed to be present. The people around me have noticed. I have noticed. I have avoided the issue. I’ve continued to do what I want. I’ve continued to be controlled by my desire. To be fixated on it. The funny thing is, when we’re distracted, we’re also intently focused. On the distraction. Makes sense, right? Life is a paradox, people. I've been so focused on doing what I want, on making it happen, on making it work, on figuring it out, on feeling good, that I have actually wasted time. Let the here and now slip away. Lost touch with reality. Been focused on the not-quite-right. On being comfortable. On being loved and affirmed and enough. On being told I am these things by other humans. On finally being fulfilled by the thing I think I need.
Yikes. How did I get back to this place so quickly? Did I not just pack up and move my life halfway across the country five months ago? Did I not learn this lesson the first two months I was here? Didn’t I finally realize that contentment is not found in the circumstantial, but in the eternal? Apparently not. I am not going to say that I thought I would find contentment when I moved here, that I was surprised when I found myself in a deep state of discontent upon my arrival. I honestly didn't know what I would find here. I didn't run away from or toward anything in particular. I followed a nudge. I didn’t have many expectations (a miracle, if you know me). But the last couple of months, contentment is about all I've been fixated on. And apparently I refuse to believe it’s found in the present moment. Expectations for the future are all I’ve had. I have been convinced that contentment is found in the next good thing. The next fix. The next step. The next thing to look forward to. The perfectly wrapped gift of my five-year plan, presented to me on a silver platter. The person who will finally tell me I’m enough. Have you ever been so caught up in dreaming that you forget how to really dream? Let me explain. I have dreams. I have desires. I was built for adventure; I thrive on newness. Also, I want to know what the plan is and what I need to do to get there. I want a detailed and categorized list. I actually don't really want adventure most of the time. I just want things to go my way. That's how I'm wired. I love spontaneity but what I love even more is knowing the outcome. Call me Type-A. However it manifests itself, at the core, my problem is this: I'm constantly looking for a better reality than the one I'm living in right now. And it's exhausting. Several weeks ago, worshipping alongside fellow believers on a Sunday morning, a thought just hit me. Let's call it an intersecting thought, a Holy Spirit thought. God's goodness doesn't get "gooder" than what he did in Jesus. That's right, the Holy Spirit doesn't always use proper grammar, and neither do I. Kidding. I immediately wrote this thought down in my designated write-about-this-later note on my phone (it's a thing) and made a mental note to dwell on it later. It was such a clear and potent and sharp arrow-of-truth to the heart. Guess what? I haven’t thought about it since that day. So I’m thinking about it now. Think about it with me. It does not get better than Jesus. As in, nothing. Nothing gets better than Jesus. No person, no love, no reality, no life, no story. We know this. We've been told since we were small, or since whenever we first heard of him. But we forget, don’t we? Or - humor me for a second - is our problem not so much that we are forgetful, but that we don't actually believe it's true? What happens when I am distracted, when I believe that something (or someone, or some place, etc.) gets better than Jesus? What happens is this: Those distractions become expectations, those expectations go unmet, and disappointment eventually crushes me. This repeated disappointment is enough to make me fearful. To keep me from trusting myself or others. To prevent me from taking unnecessary risks. To stop me from pouring grace and love out to others. If I’m completely honest, it’s usually the seemingly innocent distractions that become idols - things I look to for meaning and worth and joy. But what happens when I actually believe that Jesus is the best? That he is enough to satisfy all my longing, all my neediness, all my searching? Honestly, the outcome is just as scary, because it's just as unknown. The status quo is much, much more comfortable. What if I could actually be enough? What if, without our distractions as a safety net, I could be totally complete in Jesus? What if I don't have to live out of fear because even if things don't turn out the way I hope they will, I still have him at the end of the day? It would change everything. Rather than being distracted by what we think we need, we would be captivated by our true purpose - “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Instead of being focused on what we do not have or what could happen, we would be distracted by the beauty of our Savior and what his presence brings to our lives. In the place of disappointment when things don’t go how we hoped, we could live with a palms-up attitude, forgetting what lies behind and running full-speed into eternity. No longer operating out of fear and timidity, we could live out of faith, taking risks, taking steps toward people no matter the cost, trusting that God’s goodness is still just as good in our pain as in our joy. So we must press forward, asking Jesus to be our greatest distraction. Asking him to rewrite the scripts in our heads, the ones telling us that we must operate out of self-protection and self-service. Asking him to be what our minds turn to in uncertainty, rather than the unreliable and shallow strength of our own earthly wisdom or others’ opinions. Asking him to help us continue to remind us daily that the work that his grace has promised to complete is not inhibited, that it does not come to a screeching halt when we are unfaithful. Asking him to not just be our focus, but to be our “goodest” distraction when lesser things take over our line of vision. Because it just doesn't get better than him. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” (Philippians 3:12-16) |
Meet the writer.Hiya. Wheels, here. I enjoy all forms of espresso & days spent in the mountains of Colorado or the prairies of Kansas or the beaches of SoCal. Also, Royals baseball. Archives
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