When I was a girl, I talked to my mom of my becoming a famed author, living in a penthouse above Manhattan, vacationing in my cottage off the shores of Europe, and jetting around the world in my private jet. A girl can dream, right? She always encouraged me to do so.
The days came, though, when those dreams became my enemy. I knew the voices in my head and the people that accompanied them were evil and ought to be banished. They went into exile, protesting, “But we’ve a story to tell you.”
It was a noble and just act on my part. I must never allow unclean thoughts to be entertained. If it was fiction, it was a lie, therefore must be slain. They were, after all, vain imaginations, right?
After a noble fight, I won. Hurray! I was at last free of the images, the horrors of broken lives conjured by imagination. I would live in reality, read only teaching books, feed my soul. Noble. Honorable.
Years faded into the past. A foggy mist hovered over the paths through my thoughts making things unclear. I ached for whatever it was that I missed. I opened my journal to find line after line of empty spaces staring up at me—mocking.
One day, while searching through old documents on my dinosaur computer’s floppy disc, I came across a story written and saved. I read it and felt a tug from somewhere deep within. Ahh, it’s nothing. Later, I sent that story to my pastor. He happened to be checking his emails at the time and read it. His response came quickly. “Girl, you need to do something with that. God’s given you something.”
“But I can’t write two words together to save my life these days.” I complained to him. He would smile and encourage me.
Finally, after time had passed, God heard enough. “When will ya quit complainin’ and begin doin’?”
I stumbled upon Faith Writer’s online and entered my first “challenge”. I labored over trying to scrape enough words together in order to meet the requirements of 150 – 750 words. Fear overwhelmed me. I was met with encouragement. Soon, words began reproduce and before long I had trouble staying below the maximum. However, entering this writer’s box, I had tapped the door open to Imagination’s dungeon.
How was I to keep it at bay and still write? How on earth could I maintain reality if I allowed those people their voice again?
It’s been three years now, and I’ve wrestled with them. They've been allowed their voice, while I hid them like warts on my hands. The battle ended with a conference for our ACFW’s Great Lakes Chapter in Lansing, MI. I sat, listening as Gail Gaymer Martin shared her stories; how people grew attached to the characters, connected with them. “This (writing) is a ministry.” The words filled my soul, inflating imagination with the resolve it needed to trample down the vault door so that it may never be shut again.
It has been an amazing experience to see faces light up when I unashamedly proclaim, “I’m a writer.” I don’t know that I’ll ever be as famous as I told my mom so long ago, except in God’s eyes. When He sees that I quit hiding from my imagination—His creativity—and began allowing it freedom to express His passion for people through story. Because of these confessions and revelations, the misty fog has lifted, allowing me vision into the hope for a writing future. Recently, God has blessed this girl with three up-coming published short stories with Christian Fiction Online Magazine. Additionally, it is no longer a blushing, fist pressed into lips, confession that there are now three communities of people living inside my brain and have been there for some time. Each, like toddlers, insists they are more important than anything else I have to do.
Now to convince them they are all loved the same . . .
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