I like stories, you like stories, we all like stories :)

Here we go… This summer at Encounter the topic is stories and telling your story and such, and if you know me well, you know that I LOVE stories. You also know: I love to tell stories, read stories, write stories, etc. I lead the Bible Story time at VBS because I love to tell stories because that’s what I get to do. If you knew me when I helped with Cubbies (3 and 4 year olds at AWANA), you know that I love to tell stories to little kids and use different voices and emotions and such because after all, that’s what makes a story rememberable. Overall, I just love stories! 

Last night, the topic was the creation story- where it all began. I love the creation story, not gonna lie. I love it because it shows us God’s paintbrush and how the Grand Artist created the world. Just think about it: God starts with the blackness of nothing- the blank canvass, and then he makes light, stars, skies, days, nights, birds, fish, plants, animals, oceans, lands, and then most of all, he creates mankind. He creates man in his image; breathes his breath into him; he is HIS. Mankind was made to be in constant relationship with his creator, GOD. 

But then, there is something in the story we tend to miss because usually we are so focused on looking at the order of creation or the fall of man. Something in the garden WASN’T good (and I don’t mean the serpent, though he is not good either). A book called The Story of God, the Story of Us brings up this very point that something was amiss.

“Then the Lord God said, ’ It is not good for ha-adam [Adam] to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for ha-adam.’

“Did you hear that? ‘It is not good.’ Something in God’s creation wasnot good! And that is for the human to be alone. We were indeed created for community, for relationship, and not just with God-which ha-adam experienced- but also with each other. This is central to our identity: to be human, to be made in God’s image, means ‘to not be alone.’”

Mankind was made for relationships; we were not made to live this life alone. One of the biggest reasons that I love the creation story is because it shows us God’s “hesed” love for us, which means that it shows us the way thing were intended to be. We were intended to be in a garden living perfect lives, which something none of us can actually fully imagine. We were meant to live with a constant connection to God; we were meant to live a constant connection with each other. The story shows us what God had intended. Sure, God could have easily created human beings to be robotic creatures that just do what God wants, but instead, he gave us free will: freedom. “Only when we can say ‘no’ is our ‘yes’ meaningful.” 

I will be quite honest that I am not great at relationships. I tend to get in the mindset that I can do everything myself, that I need help from no one. When I get hurt by someone, I like to close myself off so no one else can do the same. When in all actuality, that is not the case. I cannot do everything myself; I cannot live “alone”. I was not intended to live alone and be a solitary human being. We always have to remember that yes, people will hurt us, people will make us cry, people will break our trust, but the key to living life to the fullest, is to pick yourself back up and continue living in relationsh