how we tell our stories

I notice two (of the three!) versions of my last post are here (and I can't seem to remove the duplicate). Such are the problems of the cyber newbie (when downloading or uploading or whatever, the little dial that all the bloggers must be aware of kept reading "0%". Forever. ) And when I checked only part of the post had made it to the page. And so I began again...a slightly different version. I've tried to delete the duplicate, but it stays, and stays.
And perhaps is an object lesson in how we tell our stories: different, slightly, every time.

So, what is truth? As a little girl I'd gather my playmates about me and tell "true stories", based on my exotic adventures in Japan. It was true, I lived in Japan for years (military family). But the stories I told were not always true--or at least not fact, not pure fact. But they were good stories.

I was a religious child, and my sin of falsehood bothered me a great deal. I didn't seem able to stop from telling those stories. I could not stop the embroidery, the suspense, the deft changing of mood, the playing to my audience. I'd repent, and pray.

Finally I decided--well, if God wanted me not to tell stories, surely he wouldn't have given me such an imagination, or such a silver tongue. Would he?

Well, sin or not, I continued. Because I think in telling stories--ours, others--we find out what matters. We shape a world.