Over the years that I have been consulting with people and doing network marketing and now internet marketing, (in essence simply connecting with people), there has been a constant that has never changed…people always want to hear my story.

 

Every time I tell my story…people respond in a way that doesn't happen at any other time. Every time I have consulted with someone and told my story people seem to click in with me and connect in a special way. They follow through with a lot more consistency after I tell them my story.

 

Whenever I make a new post on one of my blogs and it contains a personal story, I inevitably get more comments from that type of post than almost any other.

 

The people who have purchased my ebook have personally shared with me how easy it is to connect with it because some of it is my own story of how I learned to deal with countless injuries and my journey to come up with a better way to take care of them. It is my story and people track with it very well.

 

My experience is that when you share a bit of yourself, people feel a bit more connected with you. So, when you are considering the many marketing tips and tricks you may have read about or been taught, do not neglect one of the most basic and powerful relationship builders ever…actually opening yourself up and being honest and vulnerable with people as you share your story with others.

 

I have countless stories and I am grateful for them. Many of them have been born through struggle and a bit of heartache…but I have been fortunate to be able to help countless people along this journey of life simply because I can share my story with someone that lets them know they are not alone.

 

Your story is one of great interest to many people…I can assure you. In fact…if you would, I would love to hear some of your stories in the comments below…any subject (as long as it is clean).

 

Here is one of mine that has had a positive affect on a great many people over the years. In fact this story has helped me a number of times. It helps remind me of the hopes and victories in life that have happened in the past to help me face the future with a high level of hope as well.

 

We have seven children…all of them born at home. (We have a great many stories about all of them). One of these births was to our identical twin girls.

 

Up to this point (our first two pregnancies) we had two different primary midwives. The midwife involved with the birth of our eldest son had moved away but her assistant was training to be a midwife herself.

 

For our second birth to our eldest daughter, this assistant was making her primary midwife debut. She happened to have as an assistant a very practiced midwife so none of it was a problem.

 

We had some great stories surrounding these first two births. When it came to the third pregnancy we naturally called our midwife who had delivered our daughter. She and her assistant did a good job on our second go around and they were still in town.

 

So we gave them a call and we started another round of prenatal appointments and so forth. At about the 5 month point we realized that there was something different going on. My wife was growing faster than was normal. Well…we found out we were having twins.

 

It does run in my family but I had never considered it before then. I would be lying if I said we were completely comfortable with the idea of having twins at home…or even having them at all. The idea seemed a bit scary to me.

 

Anyhow…we trusted our midwives and we had been through it a couple of times. We weren't experts by any stretch but had a certain comfort level in the birthing process at home. Also…we were fully convinced that God had led us to birthing our children at home for numerous reasons. (If you would like to hear about those reasons just let me know in the comments below and I'll share them at another time).

 

Even though we were a bit nervous about the idea the Lord gave us peace and so we came to a very good place with it all. In fact…we were able to settle into the idea long before our midwives.

 

As the weeks and days marched on and we were getting closer to the due date our anticipation of another life adventure was mounting. We were excited for this prospect and my wife was especially excited because she was starting to get very uncomfortable carrying the girls.

 

There were a number of ups and downs along the way…to be expected for sure. But, right at about the 34 week mark (or thereabouts) I took a call from our primary midwife. We indulged in small talk for a moment and then she dropped a bombshell on me.

 

"We are not going to be able to make it to your birth. We are supposed to be in a conference in Texas during that time and we feel like we really need to attend the conference." She was convinced the Lord was leading them to this conference.

 

I was stunned and actually speechless. I said okay and we hung up. I really didn't know what else to say. We had put this whole process in the Lord's hands and I was hesitantly agreeing that this might be His doing.

 

After we hung up it dawned on me that they had been inquiring very carefully as to what our decision would be if any complications arose during the process. Our answer was we'll just play it by ear and see what the Lord says at the time. I know this made them nervous so I believed they decided that this was a convenient way out of the situation. (As we went through the birth I realized it was very much God's doing that they were not there).

 

I also knew that our situation was being discussed in the local midwifery circles…so there may have been a bit of fear spread there as well.

 

It was considered a high risk situation to try and deliver twins at home and I supposed our midwives simply didn't want to walk into that risk and take it on. We assured them that we wouldn't hold them accountable if anything negative were to happen…I guessed it wasn't worth it to them.

 

I remember clearly after the phone call that a wave of doubt swept over me. I don't remember the exact timing of what happened next but it was shortly after the phone call.

 

I walked into the bathroom asking God if He was telling us to simply go to the hospital and have them there. Some specific thoughts flooded my mind immediately with a specific Bible passage.

 

I am not going to share the Bible passage because it is not important. What is important is that I went straight to the Bible, read the passage and knew immediately the answer to my question. It was a resounding "NO!" In fact the particular passage made it sound like it would not only be best to have those babies at home…but it would be a very bad idea to have them in a hospital.

 

Later…after the birth was over…we actually figured out why it would have been a bad idea to go to the hospital. At the time, however, it was a choice to make. Was I confident enough that I am hearing this properly or should we choose what is "wise" in the world's eyes.

 

It didn't take us long to decide that we needed to stay home and deliver those babies ourselves.

 

My next inquiry of the Lord was…"if I am going to do this, would you please show me what I need to know?" I realize this may sound like a silly question because people study for years to understand how to handle various situations that may arise during the birthing process.

 

However, I only had weeks…not years. I knew the Lord understood this and He would share with me what I needed to know. I remember clearly that I was sitting on the couch next to a stack of birthing books our neighbor had graciously found and brought them over.

 

These books were sitting next to me and I told the Lord I would never be able to read and take in everything in those books. "Would you please just show me what I need to know for this birth?" I really needed to know the answer to this question.

 

I was given specific page numbers in every single book sitting next to me. It was about 40 pages of reading in total. I read those pages carefully and made sure I had the proper herbs and things that I could on hand for the birth.

 

These weeks were not necessarily  without nervousness but they were made easier by people sharing with us what they believed God had shared with them.

 

I believe someone had a dream…another person had a vision and others had what you may call a revelation from God (they believed God spoke to them about our situation). All of those were encouraging us to go forward.

 

We also had some dear friends sit down with us just to make sure we were certain that God was leading us in this direction. After we shared our story, they were very supportive and encouraging.

 

Another very important aspect of this was to be sure that we had some help there with us. Also…we needed to be very certain that the people who were there to help and pray would not have any fear there. We knew that the energy of fear brings about all sorts of negative things with it and we didn't want to have any of that in our home.

 

Now I am not going to go through the entire birth…that will be for a book sometime when I am ready to write it. However, I will tell you that every single thing that I read about (the pages I was sure God lead me to read) happened. On top of that there were other things that happened that were completely out of our control. It was best we didn't know about those things ahead of time because it would have just bred a bit of fear. We simply walked through the moments as they came and trusted that God was doing exactly what He needed to do.

 

It was both the most beautiful and nervous experience of our lives. Our girls happened to be identical. They shared the same bag of waters and so their umbilical cords were simply free to get tangled or whatever as they shared a common living space in my wife's womb.

 

We had some exceptionally intense things occur but we just walked them out knowing full well that God had called us to do this. In the end…through the five or so traumatic experiences, we came out the other side with a healthy mom…(all parts intact) and two perfectly healthy little baby girls.

 

I would love to share with you the details of the birth story in particular but it would be way too much to take on right now. It was scary, triumphant, beautiful, hard, unbelievable, exhausting and wonderful!

 

These sweet girls were born on my eldest son's fifth birthday and he went on and played his first soccer game of his life later that afternoon and scored his first goal. It was quite a birthday for him.

 

We found out afterwards had we been in a hospital…my wife would have had a cesarian and also would have lost her uterus. We actually have had three more boys since that time and now realize the seriousness of that decision to walk in trust and believe what God was saying to us as opposed to walking in fear and listening to the "wisdom" of the world.

 

Had we listened to the fear side…we would not have our three boys…what a tragedy that would have been. Also, had we listened to the fear side, my twin girls would have had a much different start to life.

 

Instead of being brought into loving arms and being loved to life (literally in the case of one of them), they would have been brought into the world through the knife and an act of violence. I am not saying anything about how this may be necessary or unnecessary in any given situation…but I am overjoyed that my girls had the start that they did.

 

I have such a tight bond with them because of their birth story that I could not possibly have had if this was all taking place in a hospital. We came up with multiple reasons to be so very thankful to God for being patient enough with us to walk through the whole scenario and enable us to birth those babies in the very best way possible for them.

 

It was such an impacting experience I don't know if I can convey all of the emotion that it brought about. My wife and I sat down and made an audio recording of our experiences over the course of many hours because it was such a life changing and impacting event for our family.

 

Anyhow…it was truly one of those times in life that changes your very core. I hope you enjoyed reading this story of mine. I never intended it to go on as long as it did…but I hope it was encouraging, uplifting and interesting to you. I believe the power of your story can have a huge impact on your audience so I completely encourage you to share your story and impact your world.

 

Believe me…people will greatly appreciate it.

 

Please RT, share and leave a comment below…thanks!