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Perhaps life is not about having all the answers, but about the journey of discovering them.

Martha Beck, nationally renowned life coach, said, “No part of your experience is wasted. Everything you’ve experienced so far is part of what you were meant to learn.”

When life is messy that’s a darn good thing to remember.

Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.

Last week we talked about how we make big things happen and this week we are going to talk bluntly about the messiness of life, and how that messiness is perfectly right.

When I was really young, a child, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I couldn’t picture myself doing any one particular thing, but I did know that someday I would meet the love of my life and we’d create a family. I had no idea then that 36 years later I’d find my life potentially half over, my youth gone and have 3 ex-husbands, 2 great kids, and that I’d be doing it all alone playing provider, nurturer, home manager, video game monitor, yard maintenance woman, house repair, cook and so on and so on. I didn’t know anything about porn addicts, love affairs, emotional abuse, abandonment, betrayal, heart-break and utter exhaustion.

Sometimes, okay, most of the time, life doesn’t turn out how we expect, it’s generally a lot messier, but that’s just the way it is. If you’re feeling picked on, you don’t know enough people intimately. Life is just messy. There may be meaning in my mess, or God may just make the best of a bunch of people’s various decisions, or perhaps shit just happens and we live, try to learn, and move forward. Honestly, I don’t know which it is, but these are the reasons I’ve decided our messy stories are okay.

1. It’s okay because that’s the nature of the beast.
2. It’s okay because we can learn from our mess.
3. It’s okay because from our mess we gain empathy and understanding for other people’s messes and suddenly we are able to plug into the human condition.
4. It’s okay because Christ, through his atonement, offers us forgiveness, offers to help us carry our burdens, offers to give us extra strength and ability as we flex our muscles and overcome. John [10:10] “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly. There is a way to erase the parts that aren’t working and try again.
5. It’s okay because from chaos comes the beauty of creation. Chaos is the fuel from which the fire starts.
6. It’s okay because each challenge holds an opportunity in its hands for us to become—to behave better in each struggle. To learn something.
7. It’s okay because the side trails we find along an unexpected path often hold more for us than a plan of our own making.
8. It’s okay because with a mess comes experience and from experience comes wisdom.
9. It’s okay because it has to be. It is what it is. Some of it we can control, some of it we can’t, and like it or not we’re along for the ride. Sometimes we will sit up and take notes. Sometimes we will curl up in a ball. Sometimes we will dance with wild abandon. And, although curling up in a ball is not the ideal place any of us want to be. It’s okay to be there when we need to be there.
10. It’s okay because God designed the plan and things are playing out as he knew they would.

We are in good company.

What if we looked at someone as sacred and revered as Christ? That’s a jump to the top, but he is noted for living a perfect life, and yet his life is one of the most...