Frederick Buechner was the first one who ever encouraged me to listen to my life and embrace all of — the good and the bad — with open arms. He writes to “touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart” of your life.

So I am embracing all the stories of my life—the painful, the pleasant, and the phenomenal.

Because after all, each moment is vital to my story and “life itself is grace”.

Secrets

Sssh.
Hush hush.
Don’t say that.
It’s taboo.

Hush hush.
only the perfect blush 
of color in our flawless
family tree. No embolus

of evil, no skeletons here
No binges of beer
Or illegitimate broods 
No family feuds

Sssh.
Hush hush.
Don’t say that.
It’s taboo.

So my story begins: 
I'm not allowed 
to show disappointment
or speak pain into the air.

Surely
it wasn’t quite that way.
Anyway
it all happened yesterday.

Move on.
Get over it.
Suck it in.
Suck it up.

But
Don’t
You
Dare
Spit it out. 

So I shut my mouth—
I suck it up
like a Hoover vacuum,
like the vortex of a tornado,
like a slurpee through a straw,

and all I'm left with is 
one
colossal  
brain-freeze.

-A draft by Carla Jeanne Picklo Jordan

What stories shape your life? Let me know in the comments below.