Last month, I posted the story of Faded Embers. Fresh from Realm Makers less than a week before, I was excited about the change in my writing life. The book that had been the bane of my existence for two years was going to happen, and I was incredibly thrilled.
Only I wasn’t quite honest when I wrote the post. Not intentionally, mind you, but as a newly minted forty-year-old, I’m now entitled to claim a certain amount of forgetfulness. Because, you see, my revelation back in July was actually part two of the story.
I’m not sure where the story really begins (a malady that affects most writers), so I apologize if I’m starting much too early in the narrative. I’ll also apologize to the Christians for whom this is a lesson learned a long time ago, and to the non-Christians who think it’s a bunch of a silly nonsense. I hope both groups can indulge me a bit here.
In December of 2015, I packed my bags for a business trip to Japan. Feeling extraordinarily guilty about missing worship during Advent, I downloaded a few sermons I’d missed while traveling during Lent and tossed my iPod in my bag as well. I’m not an auditory learner, so this was definitely a guilt thing and not any kind of willingness to learn—I knew deep down I wouldn’t touch the files.
Only I did. One of them, at least. But I was sick with a bad cold, and I fell asleep while listening, more than once. Feeling even more guilty about that, I put the iPod away and slept the rest of the flight.
I didn’t think about that sermon for years afterward.
Not too long after I returned from that trip, I began Asrian Skies. I’d never considered writing a book, yet the pull one day was simply too strong to resist. Writers talk about the story wanting out, and that’s what I was feeling. It needed to be told. It wouldn’t let go, just pulled at me until I could do nothing but hang on and type. Once I’d finished, I thought I was done. I’d gotten this strange desire out of my system, and that was that.
Only, as everyone knows, it wasn’t the end. Unbroken Fire followed in 2018, and two more completed books soon appeared on my computer. From the outside, things seemed good. I had decent reviews, Asrian Skies made up its production costs, and people said very nice things about both.
But it wasn’t enough. I cried every time I ran across another agent or small press who didn’t like what I wrote—no matter that I’d never had any desire for a traditional contract. Every time I received a critical review, I wanted to toss it all away. When sales of Unbroken Fire stagnated a short week after its release, I blamed myself.
And worst of all, I found I had no idea what to do with the almost-finished Shattered Honor and Faded Embers. The idea of putting more unloved books out in the world made me sick to stomach with an odd fear second only to flying an ILS to minimums. I couldn’t let anyone read them. I couldn’t put myself through the bad reviews, the dropping sales, the teasing and bullying from people who didn’t like my writing, and depression. I was done. Moving on. I was going to find something else to do.
But at the same time, I still felt that pull to write. I’d admitted to myself when people questioned my off-the-wall decision to write Asrian Skies that it was God calling me to do it—but why? I wasn’t a creative. I wasn’t a writer. There were so many more people more qualified than me, people who’d been writing since they could hold a pen, people who had degrees in creative writing. They were the ones He should be using.
(Just call me Moses, I guess.)
It was at that point that a fellow writer, upon hearing my claim that I felt called to write but didn’t particularly want to do it anymore, pointed out that deciding not to write out of fear and selfishness and the words of the world could quite possibly be an act of disobedience toward God.
Ridiculous, I thought. But it stuck in my mind, like a record I couldn’t quite turn off.
And then, in March of 2019, as I sat in my office during my every-other-month trip to Dallas, brooding over how poorly my next book would be received, and how I just did not want to publish it and did not have to, dangit, that comment came crashing back—followed by the smallest whisper that maybe…just maybe…I should find that sermon from all the way back in 2015.
Strangest thing.
Except wouldn’t you know, it wasn’t on the church’s website anymore—and my iPod had long since vanished in a move. Maybe I’d imagined the topic. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. I’d been jet lagged and sick, after all. In any event, in that instant, I felt vindicated.
See, God, I can’t do what you want. So there.
And He laughed, I think. Because before I quite realized what I was doing, I’d sent a Facebook message to the church, asking about older sermons (and as anyone who knows me is aware, I’m about as likely to run a marathon as I am to randomly contact a stranger).
They had deleted some older ones, the Facebook admin quickly informed me. But she was more than willing to see if it was still stored on the computer, if I could remember what it was about.
Obedience to God, I told her. I think it was in March 2015. But please don’t spend too much time looking. I’m probably not remembering correctly.
I prayed I wasn’t remembering correctly.
I was. Twenty-five minutes later, she’d uploaded it to SoundCloud.
So I listened to it on my drive home from work that evening, even though I didn’t really want to. Traffic was bad, and I took a detour back my parents’ house. It was a risky move during rush hour, since I wasn’t familiar with the area, but I was a good enough navigator to simply head east while while I listened to our priest talk about the Gospel reading from that Sunday—John 12:20-33.
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
Jesus’ soul was troubled by what he was about to face—and he did it anyway, in obedience to God’s will.
I didn’t know what to think. I don’t feel convictions very often. But when the sermon was over and I looked around at where I was, I was stopped at a red light at the intersection of two roads I didn’t even know crossed—two roads I stole for character and location names in my books.
I’ve never been one to believe in signs. But I believe the Holy Spirit works in unimaginable ways, and I’m left in awe of God’s timing, this many months later. Because I realized, as I sat there at that red light, that if Jesus can go to the cross out of obedience to the Father, then surely I can deal with the unease and discomfort of a few bad reactions to my work. And that He will still be there with me, every step of the way. Because He understands. He’s been there. For me.
I released Shattered Honor less than three months later, with zero fear. I dithered around with Faded Embers a bit longer, but the 2019 Realm Makers conference convinced to me stop wavering and get it finished up—it’s now slated for release in early 2020. I’m not afraid of it any longer. Because now I know, that even if I never become famous, even if most people end up hating my work, even if it only sells a handful of copies, that I will have done everything I can to glorify Him through my writing.
And that, my friends, is something worth celebrating.