I have always had a strong conviction that sometimes we go through things and we need to share our journey. Over the years I have been through some really painful things and sharing my story not only helps me heal, it helps others.

In the last few weeks a friend started sharing her journey on Instagram. One of the things she said about sharing her story was, "Ï'm learning to love my story." It has stuck with me and I have thought about it a lot.

I share my story through my social accounts, through my photography and through my blog. One of my biggest challenges with sharing and loving my story was that I didn't love the messy bits. The bits that weren't perfect were hard for me to look at. I definitely didn't want to love them and embrace them as part of my story. I wanted to just press delete on the messy bits really. They felt like failures.

As I have become more comfortable with sharing my story and learning to love it, I have learned something else. People don't relate to the edited version of my story. They don't want to see the perfect, polished, clean version. People don't want perfect, they want to know that someone has been through what they are going through and is still standing on the other side of it.

I wanted to write this weeks blog to encourage you that your story has purpose. There is purpose in the hard stuff, there is a reason for the ups and downs and the things that you aren't proud of. Your story is yours to tell and yours to love. Be proud of it and share it with people, you'll be surprised how many people it helps. As we trust God with all of it, the messy stuff, the great stuff and the in between, he can use your journey in a powerful way.