Welcome to GiveYourStory.com! It is my pleasure to launch this site today, January 1st, 2024! I am looking forward to unwrapping the potential that our stories have to offer. I am excited to get to know you and your story. I am really fired up about the idea of being part of and watching people catch hope. Part of my plan in all this is to have fun along the way. I have some ideas on the directions this site will go, but ultimately it will be up to you, the readers, as to the path we take on this journey together.

I am working on a story project that I thought would be my very first post. As it turns out, it is a little larger of a project than I thought it would be, and therefore it is not quite ready. In addition, I had a side-step event that took my ability to continue and finish the project in time for the official site launch. I will be sharing about this event for my January 2nd, 2024 post. Please keep checking back to see what is happening here at GiveYourStory.com.

Without any further ado… I give you GiveYourStory.com!

On Sunday, New Year’s Eve day, I took a walk with my wife on a path we had never been on before. The path is only two miles from our house. The area we live in has multiple lakes with walking, hiking, and biking trails around them. You would think that after living here for over 8 years, we would have walked this path by now, especially since it is so close to our house. However, this path has poor parking access. There are only about 5 spaces available on one side of the road that are just a little wider than a vehicle and are parallel to a fairly busy road. Today, however, we decided to take this path. Since my original project is not quite ready for a post and the side-step event I had took place, I honestly was racking my brain on what I was going to write about for my very first post.

As we walked, we came upon this seemingly out-of-place chimney. In addition, there are footers in place as well. We stopped and began a discussion that started with questions. Why is this here? What do you think happened? Isn’t this in an odd place? As we were closing out our thoughts and starting to make our way back to the path, a man approached us from the opposite direction. He had overheard our conversation and as he was passing by said, “There’s a story in there.”

Have you ever bought a car that you were not all that familiar with the name brand or maybe the model type? After you buy it and start driving it around, suddenly you see those types of cars everywhere! They have been there the entire time, but you never noticed. As you might imagine, since I created the domain GiveYourStory.com, I have been very acutely aware of the word story and how often it is used. I have been fascinated not only by how often it is used but also how it is used. People are interested in your story!

So I ask, what is your story? What event or events have impacted your life and who you are today? How did you overcome danger or conflict? Who may have stepped into your life and showed you something that has forever changed you for the better? What hardship have you experienced that maybe wasn’t your fault but you were able to overcome? What hard work did you do to get where you are today? How have you been successful and why? Did your faith tradition ever harm you? What did you do to heal from that? Have you found Jesus? How did you find him? What has that been like? These and many more are the questions I have for you.

Your story of what happened, how you got to where you are, and what it is like now is waiting to be told to help others. I am sure.

THERE IS A STORY IN THERE…