Funny how the writer always intrudes into blogs meant to be separate from writing

No internet for the past couple of days. Somewhere in a town nearby something happened to one of the cables and we were offline for a day or so.

I signed up for a course meant for Sunday School teachers, and boy that is some heavy stuff. The lectures were in Dutch, and both days were pretty intensive. I ended up taking notes in English because he was talking so fast, there was no way my brain could process listening and writing it down in Dutch too (spelling and conjugations), so I opted for english, and hope I'll be able to do a good translate when test period comes around.

I remember being in doubt as to whether I'd done the right thing when I said yes to Mrs. Feliciano when she asked if she could include the essays from my poetic memoir. This came after hearing that one reader thought my memoirs were somewhat negative. I found myself struggling with that question. I looked at the ms again and I know that it's not all positive, but the end of this ms is filled with hope, with the wish for better things, with the embracing of self and of God.

It's odd that I should get this insight while sitting in a roomful of eager Sunday School teachers. I remembered writing the draft for the ms. I remembered sitting down after seven years of not writing and asking God to give me the words. I also remember telling him that if he really wanted me to write, he'd have to prove it to me. So, how come the first feedback I got was negative?

The lecturer then said something that made it very clear to me that I had written exactly what needed to be written. He said: It's our job to do what God wants us to do. What the other person does with it is their business. I realized then that I had done what God wanted me to do. I had written down the ms in the way it was meant to be written. If it helps someone that's a blessing, if someone takes offence, that's their choice. I came away from the first two lecture days thinking of how God summons each of us to do a certain thing. Maybe my job isn't as spectacular as the person who's helping orphaned kids in the jungles of Uganda, but I am doing what the Lord of the Kingdom commissioned me to do.

I tend to be quite forgetful, and so I wanted to post some points that I set as personal goals when I launched out on this writing voyage:

Challenge 1: Write better than your best
Challenge 2: Do not be satisfied with mediocre
Challenge 3: Push outside of the box
Challenge 4: Do not limit yourself and do not limit God
Challenge 5: Promote writers whose work you believe in (love other writers...get to know their work...and don't let religion stand in the way of promoting the other--good stuff is good stuff).
Challenge 6: Do not fall into bigotry, do not be afraid of criticque, take every piece of advice to heart and learn from every rejection.
Challenge 7: Trust God to take your work where its meant to go

On the 4th challenge, I have to think of something the lecturer said about the Bible. He was giving us an illustration of various stories from the New Testament...for instance: Jesus walking on water, Jesus raising the dead to life etc. etc. He then said another something that made the puzzle in my head go click. He said: "The bible is full of strange stories. If you read the Bible, you'll be quite surprised to see how everything reads like stuff out of fantasy, but it is truth. Our God is a God of wild imagination and supernatural stuff."

I sat there thinking to myself, yes...God is supernatural and I bet that if he were a writer in this day, he would be writing speculative fiction too :)

As a christian writer, I believe in the redemptive power of the word. The word has the power to give life and to kill. The word stings us, the word opens our eyes to truth. The word was after all what God used to bring creation to life. Writing is part of my life and my struggle. I remember conducting an inspiring interview with Lynn Austin. The interview is in archive over at The Sword Review and the answers she gave me back then continue to be an encouragement as I seek to write what God wants me to write.


Here's a quote from the Lynn Austin Interview:

I think a book can be Christian and not mention God. Again, it’s a question of worldview. One of the reasons I began to write is because I was so tired of reading books that were beautifully written but the underlying philosophy was “Life is hard and then you die. It’s meaningless.” I agree that life is hard—but God is good. To me, it’s this underlying message of hope and salvation and meaning that makes a book “Christian”—whether it mentions God or not.

I will never be able to please every Christian reader. I would be wrong to try to. I need to remain true to what I feel God wants me to write, and let readers be free to read what their consciences dictate.