I grew up in a very small town in Tennessee. My dad was a family doctor, and every March when I was kid, he spent a week hosting university students from Nashville who wanted to learn about health care in our small town. Mid-week, he gathered the students to share stories. I envied the students for hearing from my dad what I hadn’t yet. I dreamed of being among "the chosen." And at last, when I was thirteen, my dream came true.

Fifteen of us circled in the clinic’s waiting room, on weathered canvas seats, hot pizza beside my mom’s fresh chocolate cookies. I can still see the orange glow of the sunset cast across the dark carpet. I sat, with my feet on the floor like the “adults,” and listened as Dad shared two stories about encounters with patients. I’ve never forgotten them.

He told how he gave an ultrasound to a pregnant woman who revealed that her stomach scars were from when she was three, and her mother set her on fire. And the other about a woman seeking his help for her Xanax addiction who confessed her landlord was forcing her to pay the rent with sex. I remember my stomach churning, like I’d been kicked. These weren’t the kinds of stories I expected to hear. Then Dad challenged us, “Why tell such stories of suffering?” I honestly didn’t know, so I sat quietly, waiting. And then someone said: “Because how will we know how to act if we don’t know the story?”

I believe my dad wanted me to join that night so I’d learn that the world is filled with painful needs; that doing right by the world means attending to those needs; and to do that, we must encounter the stories. This value stuck with me—attending to the pain and need of the world. It sparked a passion that led me to study history, conflict resolution, and to devote my work to the healing possibility of peace through storytelling. Because my dad was right—the world’s pain needs our attention and action.

Today, I have the privilege of supporting people across the globe in the two areas that most enliven me: telling stories and navigating conflict.