The Ugly Cry (The Why of it all Part 1)

I know that I’ve written before of many reasons why I enjoy writing so much, and what fuels my desires to create good fiction, but I’m not sure that I’ve touched on what it all boils down to.

I love the feeling I get when I write, I love pushing myself to explore my boundaries and see where God wants to take my heart through the story-lines He gives me, but at the basis of it all are two truths that I didn’t even realize were my mission when I started writing Stones of Remembrance.

1. We can commune with God, have regular conversations and relationship with him like we would our friends and family.

2. The way my generation and the ones that came before it were taught about our physical bodies and about sex was lacking, and somewhat misguided (This is a broad generalization of generations that grew up in religious organizations.).

So, let me start with number one. Depending on how long this ends up being, I might divide this into two posts, we’ll see

I’m not sure who to thank for this, possibly simply the Father Himself for gracing me with a revelation early on, but I’ve never really seen God as a far away being, holding me at arms length and requiring Old Testament rituals of me before I can commune with Him. As I am in my day to day life, I am also incredibly real with my relationship with the Lord. I don’t have trouble revealing the darkness that overwhelms me sometimes, because I know He already knows about it. I can’t remember the first time I heard Him speak, it seems like I’ve always had an ear for His voice, maybe because I grew up under a woman who, though she might argue against this (because we are all in process and make mistakes), had a rich spiritual life, and taught me to value experiences with the Lord, and gave me plenty of opportunity to indulge myself in the Holy Spirit.

Much of the Christian fiction I’ve read leaves me feeling like the characters, and potentially readers, are missing out on God’s true nature. We don’t have to meet Him somewhere at a designated time and place if we allow Him access to our entire lives. We don’t have to throw out our requests with fear or trepidation, but we can tell Him of our needs and wants and trust that He knows best and that His timing is perfect, and that He loves us no matter what. This is something we’re told a lot, but until we get a real revelation of that truth, until we really believe in His goodness and love, we can’t walk in it, can we?

There is are some intense moments in Stones of Remembrance, and in the other manuscripts I’ve written, where the characters have big knock-down-drag-outs with the Father, and sometimes they’re lengthy and messy. I try to write those scenes as accurately as I can, as if they had really happened because I have those messy moments with God. There are days when I have to spend hours with Him, figuring things out, arguing, crying, and receiving before I can move on from whatever it is He is working on inside me. He loves me enough to promise to keep working in me as long as I keep giving Him access, and now that I’ve seen the result of Him having access, I don’t want to hold anything back from Him. I want Him to be free to move and rearrange, prune and plant in my life so that I can continue to grow closer to Him and understand His Father heart for me even more, no matter how long it takes.

We can commune with God, every day as if He is sitting on the couch across from us. We don’t need a mediator, we don’t need to purify ourselves before coming to Him, it is simply being with Him that begins that process, and I feel like these are truths that are forgotten or even omitted sometimes, and they’re gravely important to our abundant life in Christ.

So I write my novels in a way that is reflective of my relationship with the Lord, yes, even when there is cursing involved. I get to be completely real with the Father and I don’t have to fear His wrath. He loves me without condition. He loves me no matter how many times I fail, or how many times I succeed.  I want to spread that word as far as I can — that He loves us and wants to get messy with us. He wants the snot-dripping-heart-rending-ugly-cry moments that bring us closer to His revelation of love, and then He wants simply to be there as we move on from those moments. His presence is real and we can tap into it 24/7.

My hope in writing in such a fashion is that people will begin to question whether or not they are experiencing as much of God as is available to us. My hope is that as a reader, you will be given a new revelation of who the Father is, and how much He truly wants to be involved in every area of your life, that it’s even possible to be frank with Him, and to live life as if He is walking through it with you, every minute of every day.

(Part 2 “The Heat of the Moment” can be found by clicking here!.)

Have you ever had a knock-down-drag-out with God? Do you fear what He might say if you did? I would love to hear your story!