Good Tuesday morning! I pray that your day will be filled with God’s goodness and that you will give praise to the One who blessed you with all that goodness. Let’s continue today with this April challenge, Blogging A to Z.

In the article “More Bliss, Less Stress: A to Z Happiness Boosters to Try Today” by Jennifer Rainey Marquez in Good Housekeeping, her attitude changing idea for the letter “f” is to flip through photos. I get this one. I could spend hours going through old pictures.

I’m sure Creative Memories and Shutterfly are thankful for our desire to boost our attitude by retelling our life story through pictures. Even on Facebook, there’s “throw back Thursday” for people to share a little tale with a picture included.

Yes, we love looking at photos and thinking back to the time when an event took place. Pictures help to refresh our memory when the details can be a little distorted. Pictures also remind us of people who are no longer with us. My grandparents. My grandson. When I see a picture of each of them I smile. Oh they are missed, but the memories are priceless (as they were) and they remind me of the good times spent with them.

So what did we do before photos? There were paintings and drawings and books of course, but another way to remember an event or a person was through a story teller. With details stored in their minds, a story teller could share these details with precision and with a flare to keep an audience connected.

There are accounts of such people in Scripture. Joshua recounted the history of Israel as said goodbye to the people he loved (Joshua 23-24). King David shared a beautiful story in 2 Samuel 22. David recalled all that God had done for him through his lifetime.

Job shares his thoughts on God through the entire book of Job but concludes in Job 19:25 (NIV), “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.” Of course the Book of Psalm is one story after another. One visual after another. What a beautiful picture of God we have through this book.

Jesus was a masterful story teller. The pictures drawn by His words are deliberate and meaningful. There are beautiful parables sprinkled through the Gospels and each parable leads us to a better understanding of the Kingdom of God.

The Book of Acts also has some great story telling within its pages. Peter begins on the Day of Pentecost retelling the details of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection (Acts 2:14-36). Peter was joined by John in Acts 4 as they retold the story Jesus to the Sanhedrin. Stephen spoke to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 and reminded them of the Israel’s history and ended with the account of Jesus’ life.

In a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, Paul shared more of Israel’s history and went on to recall the account of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Acts 13). Paul shared his personal encounter with Jesus to a crowd in Jerusalem (Acts 22:1-22).

And if all of these story tellers aren’t enough, let’s look at one more section of Scripture that tells a beautiful story of faith. Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, recounts story after story of those who were faithful to God in their walk. From Abel to the prophets, their encounters with God are mentioned. They are beautiful stories, but Hebrews 11 ends with this fact about each of them. “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40 – NIV)

Jesus is that something better. Our Old Testament biblical heroes found favor in God’s eyes were born before the perfect Lamb was sacrificed. How blessed we are for being born this side of the cross!

We’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. But I might venture to say, the Good Story is worth a thousand pictures.

I pray that you have accepted these stories from the Bible as truth. I pray that you have accepted The Story of Jesus as the Truth. Because of Jesus we have more stories to tell of our own lives. We can share how we’ve been transformed and made new through Jesus. What a great way to boost our attitudes!

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Donna