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Now some of them had charge of the utensils of service, for they counted them when they brought them in and when they took them out.
I Chronicles 9:28 (NASB)

My dad is a great storyteller. Even to this day, he tells what we call “Pig Stories”. They are all about the summers he spent on his grandfather’s tobacco farm as a kid. We need to get him to write them down and make a book! There was lots of work to be done. But he and his cousins had a lot of fun in the process. My sister and I always laughed at the crazy stories. But we also learned lessons about life and the times. We learned about people we never met, like my great-grandmother, long passed by the time I was born. I treasure those stories today.

As a widow, I am the keeper of a story—my story, the story of my life and of the man I lost. It is my job to keep that story true to him who was here with me and Him who is King of my life.

In sharing that story, my husband lives on in an additional way here on earth. More importantly, I have an opportunity to talk about the glory of our Lord.

I have a dear friend who lost her husband a couple of weeks ago. She and I saw each other last week for the first time. Understandably, she had a lot of questions. Here is a new opportunity for me to tell pieces of my story, pieces that perhaps would not have meant as much to her until she was walking this same path.

This friend never knew Keith, never knew the great guy he was, except for what she had heard in stories. Yet, he lives with her because she sees my boys, sees our life. And that has given her the courage to move forward in her own journey.

Our story is nothing out of the ordinary. We are a pretty average family…four kids and a somewhat crazy mom trying to hold it all together. Yet…because of the bigness of our God, we often have the opportunity to inspire those around us…just by walking closely with Him, by telling His part in the story.

About a year after Keith died, our local newspaper did a story on our family and how we were dealing with our grief. As the storykeeper, I eagerly shared, weaving in threads of who Keith was and Who God is. A widow in our area read that story and contacted me through the newspaper. Our stories were very similar. We have been friends for six years now, sharing our boys’ triumphs and lows (she has three boys; I have four), stories about our sweet husbands, and holding each other up in prayer.

Sisters, we are all just cogs in the very big wheel of life. We do our small job in our small area of the kingdom, just as those who counted utensils did in the verse above. But that doesn’t mean our story is not important. Our willingness to share even small pieces of the life we are living may bless someone’s day. Perhaps giving them the reality check they desperately need or letting them know they are not alone in what they are feeling.

We might even be the final piece of the puzzle that leads to their salvation. I pray that we can all step out boldly as the storykeepers of our lives, to the glory of Him who gave us that life.

Father, sometimes I feel small and insignificant. I wonder if this path I have been on has been for naught. Help me to see Your purpose in my story. And help me to be a bold storykeeper for Your glory. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.