Part 2 on My Series of The Importance of Story

Why Telling Our Story to Our Kids Has Impact
Do you remember looking at a photo album?  I mean before technology changed everything. 

I may be aging myself a bit, but remember scanning through old photo albums. 

• I remember seeing pictures of a trip to British Columbia when I was just a baby.
• I remember seeing pictures of school classmates.
• I remember seeing pictures of my baseball team.

What’s interesting about a photo album is not just the stories it tells, but it makes you wonder about the stories it doesn’t tell.  What is in the gaps between the pictures?
I sometimes think about the Bible in this way. ​

One such area that intrigues me is the gap between Genesis 3 and Genesis 4.  In chapter 3, Adam and Eve sin and are removed from the Garden of Eden.  Then the Bible makes a large jump in time and we find the story of Cain and Able.  But what happened in between?

Two things that for sure happened were that Adam and Eve learned to live off the land and began to have kids.  Now, since Netflix didn’t exist at the time, as the kids got older, I bet there were a lot of story times with Mom and Dad. 

• “Tell us about the Garden.”
• “What were the animals like?”
• “Why did you eat the fruit?”

Can you imagine having to be the parents that get to tell the kiddos that you were the ones who started all the bad stuff in the world?  How hard would that be?
I wonder how Adam and Eve would have responded.

• “The Garden we perfect.”
• “The animals were all so gentle.”
• “I didn’t think one fruit could do so much damage.”

I bet they had quite the conversations around the camp fire. 
But why even have the conversations in the first place?  Because the heart of a parent is to see their kids not make the same mistakes they did.  Am I right?
Stories are powerful.  Our stories are powerful.
Our kids are trying to find their way in this crazy world, and whose stories will impact them the most?  Ours. 
This does not mean that our kids won’t make the same mistakes, or even worse ones, as us.  Genesis 4 is evidence of that. 
 But, it does mean that we as parents need to be strong enough to share our stories with our kids. 
Our joys.
Our lessons learned.
AND the mistakes we made along the way.
By sharing our stories with our kids, they discover that they are not the only ones going through whatever it is they are in.
 And we discover that our past can build into their futures.
So what about you?  What story from your life will you share with your kids this week?