Being a Christian and being a writer are two very complicated things when put together. My books are Christian based - meaning they are wrote with an underlying Godly theme. Each new project has a verse - a theme - as the motto for the story as most Christian fiction books do.
When I started my writing career in 2014, I started reading a wonderful book - which I've chosen not to share the title - that breaks down everything from the start to finish of Christian writing. The author was very insightful with her suggestions of how to build a strong character and really pull readers in from the first page. She does, however, point out it is imperative to avoid certain real-life situations when writing for the Christian genre.
Let me jump backwards for a minute.
When I was growing up, I went to many different churches. Some were better than others as far as getting a message across, while a few focused too much on what the congregation did, wore, and said. Of the churches I attended, one sticks out in particular. I was a youth, and would have separate service than the adults. On one particular Sunday, the youth pastor preached an hour long sermon on why women shouldn't wear pants. Me being the only female in the group wearing jeans, I naturally felt called out, but I digress.
As I got older, my relationship with God was strained because I had been taught by many outside sources that you have to be a certain way for God to love you, but that wasn't what the bible taught me. I was conflicted. See, what most of those appearance conscious churches forget is that God doesn't care how broken and torn we are. He doesn't care if we have the finest clothes or speak with eloquence. God is after our hearts; our souls. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29 NIV) God likes us to bring our trash to Him; He likes it when we willingly bag up our troubles and lay them at His feet and say, "Lord, I'm a mess. My life is a mess. I need you. I can't do it on my own." One of the biggest parts of being a Christian is admitting our own human-ness, our own imperfection. This took a while for me to understand.
Every Christian I have met has a testimony of how they came to God. Most of those testimonies are filled with awful things. Abuse, drug use, prostitution, womanizing, addiction, theft, even murder. And those things are very real to Christians. Jesus said in Matthew 9:12 NIV, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick." When I write, I use real-life issues as the basis for my character's pasts. In Beauty from Ashes, Natalie is a victim of domestic abuse and Cameron caused an accident that killed his girlfriend. In my second book, Thunder, Annie battles alcoholism and Lane harbors survivor's guilt from watching his best friend die in war. All of my characters face very real issues. That's one of the ways it makes them so relatable. As a writer and a Christian, I find it hard to follow the rules that are set in place for Christian writers. They are often very narrow, very one-sided, and in many areas, very unforgiving. Much unlike the God we follow.
The book suggested avoiding violence, profanity, and sexual scenes, and it got me thinking. I agree about not writing in too much detail of violence, drug usage, and other obvious sins, but pretending like these things aren't real is no way to reach people. In my library of 100 plus Christian romance books, few of them are raw and transparent. Most of them are extremely vague in discussing the character's "dark past" and how it effects their walk with Christ, despite being beautifully written books. I love the Christian fiction genre, but sometimes I feel like it lacks depth.
In my walk with Christ and in my calling as a writer, transparency is huge for me. God has seen me at my worst and still loves me. He doesn't care about the front we put on, He wants our dirt, our filth. When I read about someone who has found themselves down a road they aren't sure how they got to, bedding in the slums of sin, to be brought face-to-face with God's redeeming mercy and dragged away from the addiction, away from the lust, away from the chains holding them down so that they could walk in God's glory and be a shining example of what God can do for us makes my spirit sing. I don't want sugar-coated Christianity. I want raw, unfiltered truth because Jesus was raw and unfiltered. He wasn't beaten, speared, bloodied, and nailed to a cross for us to hide our tribulations. Let them be a teaching to others; a story of renewal and grace.
It is my strongest desire for my words to be just that. My books are crafted with the blood, sweat, and tears of Jesus in mind, so that they may be just as raw and unfiltered as His heavenly love is for us. Why should Christianity (or Christian fiction) be any different?
God bless, lovelies.
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