Over the past several years I have watched my writing
change and not into what I expected or wanted. All of my time has gone into
world creation. Creating characters for those worlds. Learning those character’s
quirks, their likes and dislikes. Even
better is when those characters interact. The surprise, however, is when those
interactions turn into a scene, or a rough draft of manuscript with a
beginning, middle, and an end.
I am lucky enough to belong to a critique group willing
to listen to these horrific first pieces of work. Truth be told, I revel in
being torn apart, it helps me improve and grow. I respect all of the people in
the group and I have read several pieces. All this to say that one of the women
in the group has noticed something …
I write around a specific theme. Religion. Even more
specific Christianity, which seems natural since I am a Christian and know very
little about other religions except for broad overviews. My writing can be narrowed
down even further: being a faithful servant to God. Which was never what I set
out to write about. I write about dragons and magic and things that go bump in
the night. I write about fantastical creatures and worlds both familiar and
foreign. I also write about a single deity who is caring and yet demands
obedience. Of course demanding obedience is not quite the right wording. It is
more like there is a caring God whose love washes over you so completely that
you can’t imagine living your life for anyone else.
At least that is how it is for me.
I am a thirty-seven year old woman, or will be soon, who
is happily married, not that we don’t have issues. I have three boys, each
unique and drastically different from one another. Our oldest, J1, is adopted,
he is what I would classify as a shy watcher. He loves attempting to understand
how things work and can stare at an object for hours in an attempt to
understand how it works. J2, was in our lives for nine months before J1 joined
us. The first week they were together they bonded and until recently we raised
them as if they were twins. They have a love/hate relationship with each other.
Brothers. J2 is outgoing and social, the complete opposite of J1 and my
husband. J3 was a surprise we were not expecting. I have always had faith in
God, even when I was angry with him, but my faith grew a hundred fold when J3
was born. He has a congenital heart defect and we almost lost him when he was
two months old. The first year of his life was a fight for survival and it was
during this year that my view of God changed.
I accepting that I had no control over what happened to
J3. There was nothing that I could do to affect whether he lived or died. I
found the peace that comes with truly giving something over to God and saying,
“Thy will be done.” Of course, something else happened when I spoke those
words. I didn’t hand over this one issue, I began handing everything over to
God. While I am still a willful child, I have faith that God will care for
everything as He sees fit, which goes against my natural desire to have
everything my way and in my time.
A few weeks ago, I found myself telling God that I was
ready to become a willing servant. I feel that this is one of those steps
toward being that servant and while my faith is far from its infancy, my
knowledge and understanding is basic, which is why this blog is titled Amateur
Prayers.
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