What’s The Story They’ll Tell About YOU?

They call us ‘The Gang of Six’.

Three couples whose bustling lives and many church and business leadership responsibilities… have thrown us together, again and again, for the last 30 years.

Three couples who know what it is to rejoice in heart-aching, give-the-shirt-off-our-backs friendship.

With 12 children and a piffling 26 grandchildren between us…
We know of every possible emotion that life can demand of us.
From its peaks of delirious joy. To the valleys of its darkest, haunting shadows.

We’ve learned that – no matter where they reside (some on our very doorstop; others, Australia!) – your children never really leave home.
And the conversations that bring their ‘little problems’ only grow more complex and demanding.

So…
Each year we escape for our one-week holiday together.
Each month we try to gather for a special meal.

Given our ancestry – Caribbean, Cypriot, Scottish, Pakistani, Indian, African, Irish, German and True-Blue English – you can imagine those meals can be delightful, surprising and very, very tasty.

But in those Oases of moments together, what binds us and reminds us are…
THE STORIES

Oh! The Stories we tell each other! The Tales!

Sometimes we laugh until we’re having a ‘Senior Accident’.
Or at least until we can hardly breathe… or eat.

Other times the tears flow freely.

Stories like…
“The time we ran away from the children’s home… and ended the night in a police cell.
At age 11.”

Or the Winter when…
“Mum was so poor, and we were so cold, that she had to chop up some of the front -room floorboards… to start the fire. We never did have the money to replace those floorboards.”

Or the months when…
“Having just arrived in England, with just a few pounds to survive…  “It was normal to find fleas in your beds!”

Or memories when…
“Only rich kids had Dinner! Our supper was beef-bone broth with doorsteps of brown bread. Or crisp sandwiches.”

Sometimes, of course, the stories get better with the telling.
Times when we reach Monty Python heights.

“What d’you mean you had no shoes when you were 7 years old?
You’re lucky! WE had no FEET!”

STORIES.

They’re how we share the soul of our lives with each other.
They’re how we all make sense of our world.
They’re how we pass down our hearts and minds to the generations flowing from us.

And in those stories are the stories of how we’ve worked to survive and thrive.
Stories where each of us has finally found where our talents and gifts can best be used.
Stories, where we feel that our work has blessed lives.

So. What about you?

What Are The stories you wish to be told about YOU?

About the life you’ve lived?
About the work and career you’ve chosen?
About those initially-strangers… whose lives you’ve blessed in your profession?

Because, if you know what you wish those stories to sound like…
You’ll be guided, in your choices and decisions.

You’ll live so that…
Ultimately, your stories come true!
And THAT is what they’ll say about you.
Forever.