Tonight, my brother, mother and I had the privilege of hearing Amy Tan (author of such books as The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife) speak at a benefit dinner (which was quite yum, by the way :) ) for the Law Foundation, a non-profit which provides free legal services to Silicon Valley individuals in need (not everyone in the Silicon Valley is rich, you know).

I wondered at first what she was going to speak on that would relate to a bunch of lawyers, and at first grew a little restless trying to figure out how she was going to tie a teaser about “truth” into her overall message. I soon got lost in her stories though: stories about her family, about growing up, about rebellion, about finding meaning… Some stories I recognized from her writings. Others could have been books in and of themselves, perhaps books that had not yet been written.

As she spun her tales (but they were not tales, they were truth, as seen by her writer’s eyes), I was reminded anew of the power of Story. How each of us has a Story, incredibly vast and rich. And how we pass by one another (even at church!), rarely stopping to listen, to know, to understand. I’ve thought often of this, and moreso as I’ve gotten to know a deeply beautiful woman with the gift of Story. Our Stories are meant to be heard, to be known. For we did not write them ourselves, but the God whose Story captures us all… he is the same God who has intimately known each of us, and has written our lives: our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our despair… and who does know our Story, in joy and in pain.

One such story, is how she came to realize how little she knew about her own mother, the person behind the “crazy woman” with her myriad warnings, her belief in ghosts and the supernatural… I feel the same way about my parents. I know them, but I do not know them. I love them, but do not love them. But what are the questions I must ask? What are the stories I must hear? One of my greatest desires is to know them, and to have them know me. For them to understand the deep impact they have had on my life, and how I am forever in their debt, and yet why that also means I must live my own life.

Story. Do I know yours? Do you know mine? I pray that “I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”