Have you ever wondered why you feel so excited after watching an incredible movie where the leading character beats the odds? All the goose-bumps, tears and laughter make you happy for the heroine and maybe even wish that you were the heroine. Your imagination nudges you with hope saying, “you too could be the one to go there, do that or become that. You could be that heroine.”

This is why we love a good story! A good story moves us, pulls at us and changes us. It makes us more ready to love and less likely to hate, it pushes us towards believing that the impossible is possible and it even teaches us what things are worth living for and dying for. 

A good story will always turn us inwards and quietly ask us, “What’s your Story?”

But in the half dark as I exit the cinema -  my heart full and my mind overflowing, somehow and somewhere, between scraping the popcorn from under my shoe and wiping the make-up smudged beneath my eyes, the bright neon lights  scream out at me: “Oh, but your story is boring, no one would want to watch or listen to your story, let alone be inspired by it. You could never be that heroine…you’re not strong enough, beautiful enough or brave enough!”

And of course I believe it, because deep inside I doubt myself. I feel I’m deeply flawed and that there are parts of me that are  broken. As I walk to the bathroom, with each step I try hard to convince myself that I could have what it takes to be that heroine. But staring in the mirror and trying to fix my messy hair, a voice inside me grows persistently louder… “You’ll never quite measure up. You’ll never be enough.”

Isn’t it easer then to just sit on the sidelines of other peoples great stories? 

I return home, lie on my bed and flick through Instagram. Post after post, I swipe past snapshots of the stories of others - friends, celebrities and strangers. Mostly, a swipe is all the time I’ll give, because, let’s face it, there’s a whole heap of uninspiring stories out there, and I couldn’t really be bothered to watch them or even gently tap my thumb and give them a ‘Like’.

But every now and then I stumble across a story that makes me stop. For a moment I am quiet, my heart beats a little quicker and that old familiar lump in my throat begins to rise as something deep inside me is stirred.

Why? 

It’s because I’ve witnessed a good story. Something lovely, something has moved me, inspired me and caused me to stop. To think. To ask, “What’s my Story?”

Will anyone stop at my story? Will it move others to pause, to think and to walk away from it with gratitude that they’ve witnessed something beautiful? 

As I ask myself these questions I’m painfully aware that to have a good story I will need to begin by finding the courage to step into my story and to boldly and intentionally write into my story the following words: “I am enough. I do measure up and I can become the heroine of a really good story. I will live my strongest story and others will stop, be stirred and be changed my by story.”

Then you will be able to say of me – this teen has a great tale to tell!