Welcome to the series, 31 Days to Telling Your Story.

Today is Day 27, and we’re writing on the prompt, WHOLE.

For more posts in this series, visit the Table of Contents page.

This may sound a bit repetitive from our Day 23 post on finding the common threads in your Story, but today I want you to spend some more time pondering, reflecting, and even praying about the overarching theme of your whole story.

This is important because it will help you to focus in on the critical message and not be distracted by the peripheral details. In the end, answering this step will help you communicate your message clearly and effectively.

So, what holds it all together? Is it God’s grace? Is it hope in the midst of suffering? Is it change in general? It could be anything, and it might actually be a few things. In my friend Patrice Gopo’s book, All the Colors We Will See, she weaves a number of strong themes throughout her collection of essays, including race, immigration, identity, belonging, and more — all of which contribute to her overall story as a whole.

As I was writing my memoir, A Place to Land, I realized that although I had identified “home” as the primary theme, specifically as it relates to the believer in Christ, there are also themes relating to cross-cultural living, change, identity, belonging, grief, cancer, divorce, faith, and more. But if I had to summarize it into only one sentence, I would say something like, “Heaven is the true home of believers in Christ.”

When we were in South Africa this past June and July, I spoke several times in different cities. The title of my talk was, “Your Story, His Glory.” Although I don’t plan to publish the talk in written form, I needed to identify the overarching theme in order to present it effectively to my listeners.

So whether you plan to present your story in writing or verbally, what one word or sentence summarizes the whole?

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The post How Would You Summarize Your Whole Story? {Day 27 :: Whole} appeared first on Five Minute Friday.