“I am the only child of a single mother.”

This reality has profoundly shaped me. It’s how my personal narrative began. It’s at the core of my story. That one sentence contains nearly 48 years of history and experience. It’s me.

But there’s more to me than this.

Because while being the only child of a single mother has indeed shaped me in profoundly significant ways, it is not the defining reality of my life.

And we all have a story. We all can point to events, circumstances, and people that have made us who we are—for better or worse!

When it comes to the more painful parts of our stories—those people, events, and circumstances that have left us wounded—they do not have to define us. That is, we don’t have to live according to the script we were handed. To put it another way, we can, by God’s grace, gradually learn to colour outside those lines.

Maybe this doesn’t make sense. Maybe you’re wondering what I’m talking about. So over the next few posts I’m going to share my story and how God in his grace has thus far made it possible for me to begin living according to his story.

I do hope you’ll come with me, and I pray you see how God can do the same for you.

Because I know he can.