I think I have always been a storyteller. I grew up with a mother who told wonderful stories of her childhood and there was nothing I liked better than to sit and listen to them. She was from a family of 14 children - and I had many aunts and uncles who were storytellers as well; they were funny and witty and gentle. Whenever they visited, my sisters and I would quietly hang around as they sat and told their own stories of their lives.

When I had my own children, I did the same thing with them and I included my mother's life stories as well. Both of them would ask me to tell them "one more time" about the day our neighbor cut down our apple tree or about my mother's doll (which was fashioned out of a quart jar)…. And, when my sisters and I get together now, our children hang around and listen to our stories as well. Now, that my son is married, I am delighted to find that he tells his wife these stories as well.

Therefore, in my own family, I have experienced, from both sides, the comfort and warmth of storytelling; how it creates a bond between people, how it is a loving and creative way to relate, to inspire, and even to heal.

I think I was meant to be a storyteller anyway: my first name, Debra, is Hebrew and one of the meanings of the name is, to speak kind words. My last name, Ting, when said twice in Mandarin (ting ting) has two meanings. One is a gentle way of saying, "Hearken, Hearken," or "Listen, Listen." The other meaning of ting ting is, To Stand Gracefully.

I just completed my first storytelling CD entitled, Standing Gracefully: Stories of (4) Women of the Old Testament.

- Debra Ting