Conversations with God
This month I’ve decided to do a little book series “spring cleaning” in preparation for starting my next book. This is something I’ve been putting off for a long time, but it finally needs to happen. One of the things I’m doing is re-editing Journey to Aviad, which I self-edited way back in 2011 before I completed my editing coursework. It’s not a complete unreadable mess, but there are definitely areas where it could use some improvement, and since I have full control over my book content, why not?
As I’ve been reading that book over again for the first time in years, it has really hit me how much Morganne and Elowyn have grown. In the beginning of Journey to Aviad, Elowyn in particular seems so little, and so innocent! She truly has the simple faith of a child—she knows who He is, and that He is good. She appreciates the beauty of Creation, and she prays when she’s scared.
But she also clings to cultural superstitions, like the little bag of protective herbs she carries. She thinks it will ward off evil spirits, and hopes it will keep the apparition of the slain bowman at bay. She wonders if her taking of the coin had interfered with his ascension into the afterlife, and believes that “good magics” are most effective at sunrise. Pretty typical for a medieval-era world, but they aren’t especially good theology. Elowyn will eventually outgrow them as she draws closer to Aviad and goes from simply believing to having a deeply personal relationship with Him.
By the middle of Visions of Light and Shadow, her attitude and perspective is quite different. On the archery range in the chapter “Moving Targets” she starts off talking to herself as she wrestles with a difficult decision. As her thoughts progress, it becomes clear that she’s not arguing with herself, but with Aviad, and doesn’t particularly like the answer she’s receiving.
If you want me to go, you’ll just have to get Morganne to believe it. There’s nothing else I can do—she won’t listen to me, Elowyn insisted, satisfied that she had ended the silent but persistent argument going on in her head.
Some of my own conversations with God are like this, so I understand Elowyn’s perspective. No matter what argument I offer to try to avoid the unpleasant thing He’s asking me to do, the counter argument immediately surfaces. Eventually I run out of excuses until there is nothing left to do but say, “Yes, Lord,” and humbly pray for whatever guidance I will need to get me through the unpleasantness.
Morganne is afraid, and she’s hanging on to something…I don’t know what. You said that I am supposed to go because I need to see. Please help her to see, too. Don’t make me go alone.
Of course God never leaves me to face things alone in such times, and neither does Aviad leave Elowyn. He’s with her the whole way, even when she doesn’t realize it. As much as Morganne and Elowyn have grown over the course of this series, I know that I have grown with them. It doesn’t matter that this is a work of fiction—the difficult spiritual and life questions my characters must answer as they are tested by life’s challenges are quite real. And as the author, I am in the position of having to provide both the test and the answers.
There are times when the writing stalls because I am wrestling with the same worries, the same doubts, the same fears…the same seemingly unanswerable questions that my characters are. That can leave me feeling pretty vulnerable as through them I work out my own spiritual inadequacies, trying to find very real answers through imaginary circumstances. Until I find peace with my own inner turmoil, the writing cannot continue. Difficult as that can be at times, I hope that the genuine nature of my characters’ struggles is part of what will make them, and their stories, speak to readers in a profound way, now and for many years to come. And honestly, that means more to me than being on any best seller list.
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