Pain to Pen to Paper
“If you can’t find the book you need to read, and you’re a writer, then that’s the book you were meant to write.”
Such a powerful truth lies in those words from an IG post I read recently. Of course, books born out of pain and suffering are as hard for authors to write as they may be for readers to digest and apply. For a long time in the Christian community, they weren’t very popular. Or at least they didn’t leap out from the shelf at me in the early 2000s. That’s when I desperately combed the shelves at Christian bookstores looking for a much needed life raft.
I was looking for a devotion book to help me navigate the tough road of parenting a severely autistic child. I desperately needed something that would honestly address the pain of enduring my situation. Coping skills and Bible verses were what I needed to help me endure. My faith in God was strong but my perseverance needed work.
I wish I could tell you I was brave and courageous and selfless in those years of parenting my youngest son. But the hard truth is that I was sideswiped. Wallowing in bitterly disappointment, I felt completely overwhelmed and at times despondent. I often found myself wondering how I would make it through even one more day.
During the hardest years filled with unpredictable violence, irrational behaviors and even life threatening seizures, the anointing to write my book surfaced. In 2015, my friend Heather was deep in the throes of home remodel. Usually optimistic and upbeat, Heather was stressed. Every room of her small home was in complete disarray as several projects were began and stalled in various stages. One day she found herself completely overwhelmed. She called a friend, asking for support and encouragement.
This well-meaning friend offered a solution: gather non-essentials and stash them in a trailer parked in the driveway. That way there would be more space in each room as the work was completed. The duo began to fill the trailer, but they were unable to get everything they needed inside through the front door. The friend suggested loading everything into the side door. Sure enough, everything fit perfectly. Same trailer, same stuff, different approach.
As my friend told this story, I felt the Holy Spirit prick my heart. God takes His people through the side door too. He gave me the book title and an idea for the devotional on that ordinary weekday morning. Later, an organized visionary helped me structure the book and encouraged me to bring the dream to fruition.
Lessons
I learned several surprising things on my writing journey. The greatest and most unexpected reward : the act of writing the book itself. I sat for hours at His feet daily waiting for Him to pour out His spirit and His words to me. Beginning with prayer, worship music and a lit candle, I poured out His words. The flame reminded me of the light God provides. It echoed my ability to drink in that light and reminded me of my responsibility to pour out the spirit of that light to others. His word truly was “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:25.)
I wrote of my suffering and His faithfulness to me during it. As I began to focus more on who God was, and all He’d done and continued to do for me, my own focus began to shift off of myself and onto Him.This intimate journey in writing the book transformed my thinking and attitudes about what I had gone through. It altered how those lessons would shape me. The familiar verse from Romans 12:2 took on a new meaning: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
God showed me a new way to renew my mind: by applying His promises as a life-giving antidote to my lethal way of viewing my circumstances and providing hope to others who felt the same! As a writer, I was and still am compelled to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks (me) to give the reason for the hope (I) have,” as we read in 1 Peter 3:15. Hearts and flowers and pretending everything is OK when it’s not doesn’t provide a reason, it masks it. “The Side Door” is the first in a trilogy of books designed to strip away at these unhelpful veneers. As each of us faces unexpected detours in the “race marked out” for each of us, we can cope! Using the tools of His promises, focusing on the hope of things to come and in the authentic sharing of our struggles, God equips us to go the distance and press on daily as we navigate unexpected turns filled with God given courage and confidence.
