Write from the Deep

Attending a writers’ conference can be intimidating, even overwhelming. If you want to make the most of your time at a writers’ conference, guest Grace Fox has some specific strategies to help you do exactly that. And some of them are even about your writing.

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Grace Fox

Grace Fox is a popular speaker at women’s events internationally. She inspires hope, courage, and transformation through God’s Word. She has served as a career missionary for more than 30 years. Grace has written fourteen books and published hundreds of articles in magazines. She’s a member of the First 5 Bible Study writing team for P31 Ministries and is a co-host for a podcast called Your Daily Bible Verse. Her book, Finding Hope in Crisis: Devotions for Calm in Chaos, won the Golden Scroll Devotional Book of the Year Award in 2021. Keeping Hope Alive: Devotions for Strength in the Storm won the same award in 2022. Her newest devotional is titled Names of God: Living Unafraid. You can learn all about her at GraceFox.com. 

Thanks to our sponsors on Patreon, we’re able to offer an edited transcript of the podcast

Erin Taylor Young: Welcome listeners into the Deep. Today is part two of our interview on writers’ conferences with Grace Fox, and we are discussing specific strategies for making conferences work for you. 

Karen Ball: So when writers attend conferences, what is helpful and what isn’t? 

Well, many writers wonder why they should spend the money to attend a writers’ conference if they don’t get a contract from it. How do they justify the expense to a spouse? Or maybe you think, “I’m ready to be published. I’ve got this,” but what if the professionals at the conference don’t agree? 

Haven’t they just wasted all that money for nothing?

Grace Fox: Absolutely not, because attending conferences is about growing relationships with those very professionals. It’s about laying a strong foundation for your career. You go to conferences to learn as much as you possibly can about the craft of writing. Which means you have to go in with a teachable spirit. To say, “I’m here to learn,” and take in as much as you can. That’s the first strategy. 

But conferences––all those workshops––can feel like information overload at times, so the next strategy is to tell yourself it’s okay to skip out on a workshop if you need to decompress. It’s so helpful to take time to get your notes in order and to get your thoughts put together again, or to just go to your room and have a quiet time and pray. 

With that in mind, it’s always a good idea to have friends praying for you as attend the conference. Because you don’t know what God’s purpose is for having you go there. 

Karen Ball: Exactly! Sometimes He calls you to go to a writer’s conference and it has nothing to do with your writing career. It has to do with you meeting people who get you on the right track as far as your perspective, understanding that God may be calling you to write something for one person, and if you write something and only one person reads it and it changes that person’s life, it’s worth it. The expense is worth it. The investment is worth it. It’s all worth it because you’re doing what God has asked you to do.

Grace Fox: That’s beautiful. It really is about obedience. And in my career with writing, I’ve met so many people who think that end all is writing a book—gotta write a book. Gotta write a book. But one thing I learned at a conference is that that there is a huge audience out there with magazines.

Think about it. Your book may only sell 2000 copies in its lifetime. But one magazine article can reach a quarter of a million people. You don’t know those things unless you start going to conferences and learning from those people that are in the know.

Karen Ball: That’s why it’s so important to get your expectations straight, to go in with an open mind and an open-hearted spirit and say, “What is it you want from me, Lord?” Not, “What are You going to give me, Lord?,” but “What do You want from me?”

Grace Fox: Because His plan may be to put you on the bridge to something entirely different.

Erin Taylor Young: You know, I love, Grace, how supportive your husband was. He justified the expense because God told you to go. And I love what you said about it being an education. I mean, people go back to school all the time and nobody questions that expense to pay for a class or whatever. This is the same thing. You’re paying for a lot of classes. And believe me,  it’s cheaper than college tuition!

Grace Fox: Amen. And again, the relationships that you make at conferences can last for years. I am still friends with some of the women that I met in 1999. We still communicate and [00:08:00] support each other in our writing.

Erin Taylor Young: Well, I met Karen at a writing conference. 

Karen Ball: Exactly. And so much came out of that, even beyond publishing Erin’s book, Surviving Henry. It’s amazing what God can accomplish if we’re open to letting Him do his will and bring about His plans instead of ours.

And Grace, I loved what you said in part one of this interview about not stopping until God tells you to. 

Grace Fox: That was a quote from Matt Anderson. 

Karen Ball: We all need to remember that, especially when we experience what you did, Grace. Where you told us in the first part of this podcast that you were so sure when you went to that first conference that you had everything down, that you were ready to be published, and you weren’t. Or when we’re’re told that we need to learn how to do this or this or this better…

That that can be just devastating. 

But from the editor’s side of the desk at writer’s conferences, I can say met a lot of wonderful writers, but not very many who were ready, at that moment, to be published. Writers have to spend time studying, writing, and  learning the craft.

And so if you go to a writer’s conference and they’re telling you that you need to do this and this and this, don’t look at that as something depressing. And don’t let it make you want to give up! Look at that as your orders, your marching orders. Don’t stop writing until God tells you to do so.

Grace Fox: That’s right because we want to do what God’s called us to do with excellence.

Erin Taylor Young: So, Grace, you were digging in and learning everything you could, and when you learned about articles, you explored that as a way to hone your craft. And to learn how to write to deadline. And you were building a reputation amongst editors. 

Karen Ball: One caution though, again from the editor’s side of the desk. We’re talking about making professional connections, and that’s great. But it was obvious to me when someone came to talk to me or sit at my table during a meal, and it was just to make a connection with an editor. It wasn’t because they cared anything about me as a person, or they were looking at me as an individual, or that God had asked them to sit next to me. It was that they thought talking to me was a strategic connection. 

It’s not about “connections” so much as relationship. The people that I met at these conferences, who shared passions for the things that I had passions for, who came to me with a teachable spirit like you’re talking about…

Those are the people who are still in my life because they know me so well and they know God so well and we can speak truth to each other and encourage and challenge each other. So focus more on building relationships. Just ask God who He wants you to meet. He’s got His reasons for directing you where He does.

Erin Taylor Young: Yeah, I love that. Especially because there are some conferences editors can’t always control who their appointments might be with. But it’s lovely to just have someone come along and just chat with you, to just to talk about what’s happening in the writing world or even just to visit. 

Grace Fox: So another wise strategy is to watch your attitude when you approach the editors. Always remember, they are people as well who may be dealing with hard things, who may have  just had a tragedy in their family, but here they are back at work. We just don’t know. So be careful, if an editor looks disinterested, that it may have nothing to do with you or your writing. Maybe they’re a little preoccupied because they’ve got something personal going on. 

There are all kinds of dynamics that happen at a conference, so purpose to be sensitive to those dynamics, whether with editors or the other attendees. Some are discouraged. Oh my goodness! I’ve been at conferences where a writer gets a rejections and that person is in tears. So go in as someone who’s willing to minister as well as be ministered to.

Erin Taylor Young: Just know that God might send you to a writing conference for something that you can offer to someone else––some thought, some prayer, some who knows what, and word of encouragement––and you might be there for that.

And that’s still being obedient and still being used by God and still contributing. To the overall words of truth going forth in, in this world. We can contribute even if we don’t write a word. What if we encouraged somebody who then wrote something that that just took off? Changed people’s lives? God is so much bigger than we realize.

Karen Ball: So let me recap some strategies or going to writer’s conferences that we’ve hit on here. First of all, make sure you go to conferences because God is calling you to do so. If you need to justify the expense, you can honestly say that God is calling you to this, that this is an investment in what He’s asking you to do.

The next strategy is to check your expectations at the door. We talked about false expectations, why not go with no expectations beyond asking God what He wants to show you? 

Erin Taylor Young: Right. Go in with an open heart and mind and spirit.

Grace Fox: And ask him for those divine appointments.

Erin Taylor Young: Those are so much fun when they happen!

Karen Ball: Next, check your ego at the door. Be teachable. Don’t feel as though people are rejecting you when they say you’re not ready. What they’re really saying is you can do better. That actually is a form of belief in you, and so take it as such and let it nurture you and nourish you and move forward in what you’ve been shown and taught. 

Erin Taylor Young: That brings up an important point. It’s difficult sometimes for a new writer to get that meeting she wanted, or have a critique done, and see red pen all over. But the deal is this: published writers, career writers, still get red pen all over their work!

As an editor, Karen has put red pen all over manuscripts. I have too. There are multi-published authors who’ve had a 30-page revision letter from me! That doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing and it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer and it doesn’t mean that you should be discouraged. It’s just a normal part of the process.

Karen Ball: We writers all need editors. When I’m functioning as a writer, I love getting those letters from my editor. I don’t always agree with everything that they suggest, but I know that what they are saying is, this is good, but you can do better. And it’s because of their belief in who I am as a writer.

So when editors at these conferences say this isn’t quite what we need, but have you considered, and then they give you guidance, that’s because they believe in you.

Grace Fox: When I went to that first writer’s conference. I should have checked my ego at the door. I wrote three sample devotions to be critiqued by an editor of a beautiful women’s devotional magazine. I sat at her table one meal and she recognized my name. She said, “Oh, I read some of your stuff.” And I’m thinking, oh yeah, here we go. And then she said, “They were okay, but they’re just too long for our publication.”

My devotionals were 800 words, and she was looking for something more like 350 to 400. But she said, “I know you can cut them down and get them down to 350 or 400 words.” 

I had the gall to say, “I don’t think so.” She said again that I could, and I just said no. That I couldn’t do that and maintain the integrity of the piece. 

Needless to say, I’ve never written for her. And why would she want me to? Talk about ego!

But I ended up at the airport with a different editor whose flight was at the same time as mine. I told her about that meeting, and she said, “Show me what you submitted.” So I pulled out that first devotion and slid it across the table to her. She butchered it with red ink. She took the second one and did it again. And when she got to the third one and started in with her red pen, I was just dying by that point.

But I went home with those devotions all marked up in red pen, and I did what she said. She showed me how to cut things down from 800 words to 350. And the integrity of the piece was still there!

Now? I have a hard time going bigger because I know how to write tight.

Erin Taylor Young: That’s grace right there. That is a God-gift that this editor, after you wouldn’t listen, did that for you. One of the neat things about all this? We have all made mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, and guess what? Our careers did not die. One mistake is not going to ruin your career.

So be okay with direction. With correction. We’re gonna learn, we’re gonna make mistakes, and we’re gonna be humble about it and, and then follow advice. 

Karen Ball: Grace, do you have any final words of wisdom for our listeners about writer’s conferences?

Grace Fox: Absolutely, GO. Have a teachable heart. Know that what you think you’re going for may not be at all what God has in mind. It might be about ministering to somebody in the airport on your way or the person in the plane beside you. God’s purposes are so much bigger than ours, so go with a wide open heart.

Karen Ball: Yes, amen. Thanks for joining us today. You can find previous episodes and more resources at right from the deep.com, and I bet you know someone who needs this podcast will please share it with them.

So until next time, embrace the deep, your writing and your life will never be the same.

Don't stop until God tells you to.
Share on X

Which of these strategies do you think will work best for you next time you attend a writers’ conference?

Erin will be at theFlorida Christian Writers Conference, in Leesburg, FL, October 16-20, 2024. Hope to see you there!

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

A big thank you to our August sponsor of the month,Tammy Partlow! She’s a speaker at women’s retreats, and her debut novel Blood Beneath the Pines, a suspense set in the deep South, is now available. She’s hard at work on the next book in the series! 

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

Names of God: Living Unafraid by Grace Fox

The post 222 – Strategies for Writers’ Conferences with Guest Grace Fox appeared first on Write from the Deep.

Writers’ conferences cost time and money, so are they really worth it? Absolutely! But not necessarily for the reasons you think. Guest Grace Fox shares how God moved her to attend a writers’ conference, how many mistakes she made there, and how God miraculously provided for her and used it all to bless her far more than she ever imagined.

About Grace Fox

Grace Fox is a popular speaker at women’s events internationally. She inspires hope, courage, and transformation through God’s Word. She has served as a career missionary for more than 30 years. Grace has written fourteen books and published hundreds of articles in magazines. She’s a member of the First 5 Bible Study writing team for P31 Ministries and is a co-host for a podcast called Your Daily Bible Verse. Her book, Finding Hope in Crisis: Devotions for Calm in Chaos, won the Golden Scroll Devotional Book of the Year Award in 2021. Keeping Hope Alive: Devotions for Strength in the Storm won the same award in 2022. Her newest devotional is titled Names of God: Living Unafraid. You can learn all about her at GraceFox.com. 

Thanks to our sponsors on Patreon, we’re able to offer an edited transcript of the podcast!

Erin: Welcome, listeners. We’re so excited that you’re here for another day, another show! We have a guest, which is also exciting.  

Karen: Our guest is someone that you all know. She’s been here before, and we’re so excited that she’s here with us again now.

Her name is Grace Fox. She’s the writer who lives on a boat. She speaks at women’s events internationally and inspires hope, courage, and transformation through God’s word. She’s written fourteen books and published hundreds of articles in magazines. She’s a member of the First 5 Bible study writing team for P31 Ministries and a co-host for the podcast Your Daily Bible Verse. She is just so smart you guys, and she’s here to share with us about conferences and other things. Welcome, Grace. 

Grace: Thank you so much for having me back. 

Erin: Yes, we’re excited about it. So let’s start with our same lovely question that we just love digging into. Grace, what does the deep mean to you? 

Grace: Well, that word reminds me of my childhood, standing on the diving board at the swimming pool. At the end of swimming classes, the teacher would say, “Okay, everybody, you get to jump off the diving board.”

I would just die inside because the thought scared me half to death. Getting up those stairs and standing on the diving board with a lineup of people waiting patiently behind me while I worked up the courage to jump into the deep end, that’s what I think of. In my faith journey, it’s scary sometimes when God calls me to a place where he says, “Okay, Grace, I want you to jump.”

The good thing to know is that he’s always there to catch me. Like the lifeguard, in the goodness of his heart, he’d be down there with his arms straight up going, “It’s okay, Grace, you can jump. I’ll catch you.” 

Karen: That’s great. 

Erin: Conference season is kind of rolling along here in the fall. I would love to hear, Grace, about your very first conference because we were talking a little bit earlier and I know you’ve got some good stories about your first conference. 

Grace: Yeah, so I started my writing career thinking I was going to develop a line of greeting cards. I found a woman who could draw, because I can’t draw to save my life. I came up with the concepts and we put together ten sample cards. 

Then we thought, “Now what do we do with them?”

She really wasn’t interested in doing any more than drawing. She had a little hobby farm she was busy with, and so I said, “Okay, I’ll figure out the marketing. I haven’t got a clue, but I’ll figure it out.”

I remember sitting down at my computer and Googling, like for the first time, Christian greeting card publisher. Up came the Florida Christian Writers Conference. I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. I thought, “Wow, that looks interesting.”

I scrolled through it and looked to see what faculty members were going to be there. Lo and behold, Dayspring was going to be there!

Karen: Wow. 

Grace: My first thought was, “That looks so good. I should go. Oh, but that’s way beyond my reach. That’s so far. I can’t do this, I can’t afford it.”

You know. I came up with all the reasons why not. That was in August. 

Erin: Where were you living at the time that it was far? 

Grace: I was living on a little island off the coast of British Columbia, working at a Christian camp, and we were living on paid support, so the thought of coming up with the money to do this was just beyond me. Then the thought of getting there was another issue.

Erin: Wait a minute. That really was far. I mean, let’s just point that out for our listeners. You were far, okay, and you were financially challenged. Those were both true. 

Grace: Yep. As far as distance goes, it would take me two ferries just to get to the mainland, and then I would have to fly from either Vancouver or Seattle.

If I were to go to Seattle to fly, it would be about a twelve hour trip, ten or twelve hours with two ferries.

Erin: Wow. 

Grace: So it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. I remember thinking, and arguing about that, and then just kind of shutting it down and thinking, “That’s impossible.”

But the thought never really left the back of my mind. In October I went back and looked at the site again, and it was like somebody just gripped me and said, “You need to be there.”

I shared that with my husband and he just said, “If God is wanting you to go, then I will support you with that. We will make it work.” 

Karen: Yeah. 

Grace: God actually did make it work in an amazing way, because a couple weeks later I went to a teeny tiny missions conference at a teeny tiny church. Literally walked across the cow pastor to get there. 

It was on a Friday evening. The pastor opened the service by saying, “Everybody stand up, turn around and say hi to somebody around you.”

I did that, and lo and behold, the woman behind me was there because her husband was one of the speakers for that weekend. But I’d graduated from Bible college with her more than twenty years before, and I hadn’t seen her since. I’d had no contact with her. 

I went, “Lynn, so great to see you! What have you been doing with yourself?”

She told me that she was a travel agent working out of her own home. I remember saying, “Hey, give me your information because I’ll keep you in mind if I ever need to go somewhere.”

When it just seemed like God was saying, “You are going to Florida,” I phoned her up and I said, “Lynn, here’s the deal. I need to get to Florida on this day, and I need to get back on this day and you know, I need you to get me there as inexpensively as possible out of Vancouver or out of Seattle. “

She said, “Let me see what I can do.”

She called me back and said, “Grace, I have never seen anything like this before, ever, so give me your credit card right now.”

I did and she booked me a flight on the days that I needed it. It was about $150 round trip. 

Erin: No! 

Grace: That was a miracle. And let me tell you, I didn’t know the whole story until I met her at a women’s retreat years later. She goes, “Grace, by the way, did I ever tell you what happened after I booked your ticket? A disclaimer came up on the screen that said that price was a mistake. They’d honor every ticket purchased on that price, but that was a mistake.”

Erin: That’s God. 

Grace: And that’s how I got to my first writer’s conference. 

Erin: That is amazing. Look at how God provided. You stepped forward in faith each time and God gave you that encouragement along the way and that prompting, and then he made it work. Miraculously. 

Grace: He did more even because we had a house that had been on the market for two years in Washington state. When we moved to Canada, we’d put our house on the market. It sold just before Christmas that year. But I was still several hundred dollars shy of what I needed to go to the conference. 

About a week before the conference, I remember sitting at the kitchen table, literally crying because I felt like this was way bigger than me. I was thinking, “I’m on a white water rafting trip, and I’m hanging on for dear life, and this is way bigger than me.” 

Into our mailbox came a letter from escrow that said they’d made a mistake in figuring out how much they owed us after the house sold. The amount of money they said they owed us was, almost to the penny, what was left that I needed to get to Florida.

Karen: Don’t you love how God does that? I mean, that’s amazing. I guess it’s pretty clear God wanted you there. 

Grace: I think that’s another reason why I cried. I thought, “He’s in charge of this and this is bigger than me. Let’s just hang on for dear life and see where this goes.”

I went to the conference because I knew I was supposed to go.

Erin: Yes, it’s very clear. 

Karen: How did that conference go for you? 

Grace: My greeting cards were nicely rejected by the Dayspring editor, and they’ve never gone anywhere to this day. That would’ve been like 1999, and they’ve never gone anywhere. But it was, like I say, the carrot before a little donkey’s nose. I just followed that carrot and it led me to the Florida Christian Writers Conference.

While I was there, I went to every workshop I could possibly go to because I wanted to get my money’s worth out of the thing!

Erin: Yeah. 

Grace: I went to the sessions especially about writing for magazines. That was where I ultimately broke into writing. I was just doing what the editors said. I played by the rules, and I got the Christian Writers Market Guide, and I studied it like a Bible. I did all the right things, and I was able to break in, but that doesn’t mean that I did it all correctly. 

Erin: First, though, let’s go back to the fact that you got rejected by Dayspring. Like what happened to you when that happened? Obviously you said, “Well, too bad, I’m still gonna learn everything I can.” But did you also go, “God, uh, did you make a mistake?”

What did you think when that happened? 

Grace: I got rejected there, but I thought, “I’m not gonna give up that easy.”

I think I went back home and I sent the samples to… I must have sent them in to Dayspring again. At that point, there was an artist named Matt Anderson, and he had a line of greeting cards called Heaven’s Unofficial Greetings, like there were little characters like Ziggy, the little cartoon character.

They were one of my favorite lines of cards. So I sent some samples in, and I got a letter back. It was kind of a form rejection, you know, “Your cards do not meet what we’re looking for at this time. Thanks, but no thanks.”

I saw the name on the letter when I got it, and I thought, “That’s not Matt Anderson. That’s not who I wanted to look at the cards”

So I got on the phone. There was a phone number on that thing. I phoned and I asked for that person. It was a name that could be either a male or a female, so I really didn’t even know who I was calling, but I called up, and it turned out to be a man.

I said, “I wanna know why these cards were rejected.”

He said, “Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t even see them. I was not the one who looked at them. Matt Anderson did. Why don’t I have him call you? He’s a really nice guy and he will do that.”

I thought, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” But I thanked him and hung up. 

Thirty minutes later my phone rang and it was Matt Anderson himself!

Erin: Wow. 

Grace: He went through each card and what he thought about them gave me his opinion. Then he said this, ” Grace, if God is in this, then don’t stop until he says so.”

Karen: Very good. 

Grace: I thought that was the best piece of advice, and I’ve passed that on to a lot of newer writers too, because it really kept me going. I didn’t realize you probably shouldn’t get on the phone and call and say, “Tell me, explain to me…” 

But these people were gracious with me and gave me the answers I was looking for, and that’s what I needed.

As for Matt Anderson, later I was able to interview him for a Power for Living Sunday School paper article. Then we met years later at a Mount Herman Christian Writers Conference. It was great fun. 

Erin: Wow. What I love is these connections that you were building, you know? Let’s go back to the conference. You get rejected by Dayspring, but you’re still, you know, moving along. Did you get rejected at the conference with Dayspring, or did that happen later? 

Grace: No, that happened right at the conference. 

Erin: Okay. Yeah. 

Grace: I had sent them in earlier to be looked at, and so when I got the envelope back there was the nice rejection letter.

Erin: How did you feel? 

Grace: I was disappointed because that’s why I went. I went thinking, “Oh, these are so cute and for sure somebody’s gonna want them.”

I had actually done a little bit of a test drive with some Christian bookstores on Vancouver Island, I had taken them in, and also had taken them to a friend of mine who owned a Christian bookstore in Tacoma, Washington.

All of them were favorable reviews, so I went to that conference thinking, “I’ve got this thing in the bag.” But it didn’t turn out that way at all!

Erin: You wouldn’t be the first person to think, “I’ve got this thing in the bag,” at a conference. 

Karen: Not by a long shot. 

Erin: What else happened at the conference? You learned a lot, it sounds like. 

Grace: I learned a ton. Really that was the best thing I ever could have done, to invest in a conference. I know it’s costly, but it’s an investment. People invest in their education if they’re going to become a teacher or a dentist or any other career. So you know, we need to, as writers, invest as well and know that that money is well spent.

Erin: Right!

Grace: I went wanting to learn. Especially when I got my rejection, I knew that I had to pivot. That’s the big word, right? To pivot and to be flexible. I thought, “Okay, well if the cards aren’t gonna fly, I’m not gonna waste this opportunity. What else can I learn?”

And, yeah, I learned. I remember catching an editor on the sidewalk and pitching an idea on the way to the dining room and that type of thing. He actually said to me, “Yeah, go ahead. Why don’t you write up the story?”

And I did. And I got published. So that was a win for me. 

Erin: You know what I love about all this is that you’re very tenacious. You were willing to not roll over and die at the first sign of trouble. You just kept moving forward.

Now, I know you and I were talking at one point about your interaction with Andy Sheer. Was that a result of this conference? 

Grace: Yes. 

Andy had said yes to an idea that I pitched to him as well. I went home, wrote up the article, typed it up, and I sent it in. That was in the days where they weren’t doing so much by email. It was hard copy.

I sent it in and a little while later I got a rejection letter back. I was appalled to see that when I sent this thing in, I’d sent it on recycled paper, so there was something typed on the back! It wasn’t even clean paper that I sent the article in on. I was so appalled. I just wanted to go crawl into a hole and never come back out.

I did get their form rejection letter back. Although I think it did say something like, “Try again.” It wasn’t a, “Don’t ever do this again!”

I did get a comment like that from another editor. I can tell you about that one. But this one, I don’t think I ever submitted again to that magazine because I was so embarrassed. So embarrassed. 

Erin: Let that be a lesson to everyone out there. Try to use clean paper. Or in these days, hey, everything’s electronic, so that helps. But don’t send it “to whom it may concern…” 

Grace: That’s right. Play by the rules. Get that Christian Writer’s Market Guide and play by the rules. 

Erin: There you go. Obviously, though, you’ve had a very prolific career. Did you go to other conferences or did you just make the most of this one so much that afterwords you were mostly developing connections by submitting and getting rejections and submitting again? 

Grace: I probably went to one or two conferences a year for the first seven or eight years.

Erin: Wow. 

Grace: Yeah. Oh, I did the whole thing. I prepared meals for my family, and I marked on the freezer container, you know, 350 degrees for forty-five minutes. I did all of that. Just prepared, prepared, prepared so that my family wouldn’t feel like I was stepping out on them because I’d be gone for a week at a time. I still had three kids at home at the time. They weren’t little anymore. They were junior high and high school, but still. 

I did that and then I think I took a bit of a break, if I remember correctly, because I felt like things were really starting to move along and it was okay to take a break for a couple years, three years. 

Then my husband and I moved from the island down to Abbottsford, British Columbia, which is about an hour from Vancouver. But the ministry that we began leading at that time meant that I had to be overseas for about five or six weeks every summer and also in the spring. 

I had loved going to the Mount Herman Christian Writers Conference partly because it wasn’t as far as the Florida Christian Writers Conference. It wasn’t clear across the continent for me. It was also in the same time zone, so I didn’t have to deal with jet lag. That was quite handy. Just less expensive all around for me. But they always did it in the springtime, right around Palm Sunday, and that’s when our missions staff conference was held overseas. So I missed it for many years.

But yeah, my writing career was really taking off at that point, so it didn’t hurt it so much since I had a lot of established connections. 

Erin: Right. 

Grace: But for those who are thinking about it, or just fairly new kids on the block with this, it is good to get your foot in the door and keep that door open by growing those relationships at conferences. 

Erin: Right. I think that’s a misconception that a lot of new writers have. I know I did when I was a new writer. I was like, “Well I have to go to a writer’s conference.” But then you go and there’s so much pressure on that one because it’s expensive and you’re like, “I’ve gotta make my money back. I’ve gotta do this now, and this might be my only chance.”

But it doesn’t work that way very often. The best thing is exactly what you did, Grace: to go to as many conferences as you can year after year to meet the same people, to develop relationships.

Ultimately that’s what I ended up doing as well. That’s how I got to know people. That’s how I grew in my writing craft. That’s what happens.

Then after you’ve been going to conferences for 5, 6, 7 years, you know so many more people and those connections and relationships are far more developed, and then when the time is right, God takes you, if he has publication in the path for you, and he opens those doors and makes it happen and all of a sudden you’re like an overnight success after seven years. 

Karen: After a lot more than that. There are people who’ve been overnight successes after twenty years. 

Erin: Yeah.

Karen: Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I really enjoyed this whole conversation and we’ve got even better information and ideas for you about attending writers conferences in the next podcast. So be sure to listen.

Are writers’ conferences worth it? Guest Grace Fox says YES! #ChristianWriter #amwriting
Share on X

Names of God: Living Unafraid by Grace Fox

Erin will be at the Florida Christian Writers Conference, in Leesburg, FL, October 16-20, 2024.

Have you been to a writers’ conference? What did you you think about your experience?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

A big thank you to our September sponsor of the month, Christy Bass Adams. She’s the author of a devotional titled Learning As I Go: Big Lessons from Little People, and a middle grades novel, The Adventures of Cricket and Kyle: Imagination Checkers. She’s also a speaker and leads women’s conferences and Bible studies, and she’s a monthly contributor to Inspire-a-fire and a newspaper columnist for Greene Publishing.

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 221 – Are Writers’ Conferences Worth It? with Guest Grace Fox appeared first on Write from the Deep.

There is no escaping our humanity. But we can address those elements in our hearts, minds, and spirits that make us, as people and writers, vulnerable to attacks from the enemy of our souls. Attacks that seem, nowadays, to happen more and more often. Come explore the solutions to those vulnerabilities so you are ready

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

No one likes to be vulnerable. Heck, we don’t even like to admit we’re vulnerable, especially to the enemy of our souls. But as fallible humans––yes, even someone as wise as we are––our strong emotions that can lead us astray, giving the enemy a foothold to launch attacks against us and tear apart our faith and trust in God.

All of the emotions we’ll talk about today are a normal part of life. They aren’t wrong or dangerous in and of themselves. But when we don’t take them to God, seeking His guidance and peace, His resolution, things can go very bad very fast.

So let’s dive in.

Scripture makes it clear God gets angry, but His anger is always righteous. Since we’re created in His image, we, too, have the potential for anger. Unfortunately, our anger often isn’t righteous, but self-focused. We perceive some slight, some insult, some betrayal––and they all may be real––and we get angry.

A reader writes us a letter taking us to task for something we’ve written. Our book receives a one-star review for reasons that have nothing to do with the book itself. Publishers decide to cancel or not renew contracts.

Anger is often understandable. But when we nurse that anger, when we let it coax us into bitterness and a desire for retribution, when we continue to visit it and feed it, we have opened a door to the enemy’s attacks.

And satan loves it when we nurse our anger, when we recount it to others and do everything but surrender it to the Father.

The longer anger dwells in your heart, the more likely satan is to fuel it. To increase your frustration, to compound the negative feelings and thoughts with any issue that arises, whether it’s connected to the source of your anger or not. And before you know it, you are under attack, and more focused on serving your anger than serving your Lord.

Remember Ephesians 4:26-27: “Don’t sin by letting anger control you…for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” If you’re angry, be sure you are controlling that emotion and not the other way around.

Seek resolution. Address the problem rather than the person who attacks you. Stick to the facts of the situation, where you felt wronged. Seek to communicate in a calm, reasoned tone. Don’t fall into the trap of yelling or letting your emotions take control. Instead, let God lead you as you try to talk the issue out. 

Know when to let it go. Some situations cannot be resolved. If your anger is taking up too much of your time and energy, if it’s leading you into resentfulness or bitterness, you need to surrender it to God. Holding on to anger hurts you far more than anyone else.

Physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain. It all strikes at the heart of what we believe, at the heart of our trust in our loving Father. Too often, our response to such pain is to pull back, to separate ourselves from others. Or to think God has forgotten us or is ignoring our suffering. That He doesn’t care.

Or, even worse, that we must not have heard Him right when He tasked us to write for Him, otherwise He wouldn’t let us go through this pain. But those reactions only make things worse.

Pain married with isolation and doubt is dangerous and becomes an open door to satan’s attacks. Instead, lean into the pain and try the following:

Know what Scripture says about pain. For example:

1 Peter 5:10

“After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you”

See how it says AFTER you’ve suffered, and not IF?

2 Cor 4:16-18

Isaiah 43:2

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.”

Revelation 21:4

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Let God in to your pain.  Justin Jahanshir, on Jamesriver.church, shares this wisdom:

Injustice is so hard to deal with. Whether it’s false accusations (“She stole my story!”), or untrue attacks on our reputation (“If he was a real Christian he’d never write something like that!”), or flat-out lies told about us (“Did you hear? She’s turned her back on God!”), everything inside of us wants to defend ourselves. But God calls on us to leave these attacks to Him.

Oh, I can hear you now: “Never? Never defend ourselves in the face of injustice?” It’s a hard admonition, isn’t it? I struggle with it too. When someone treats me or those I love unjustly, everything in my flesh wants to rear up and defend against those false accusers. It’s a normal, human reaction.

But our behavior isn’t based on normal human reactions, is it? It’s based on following our Lord. And His instructions are clear.

If you’re not sure about that, read Romans 12 in its entirety, giving special attention to the following verses:

14: “Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.”

17-21: “Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the LORD. Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.

“Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.”

And God gives us even more instructions in 1 Peter 2: 19-25:

“ God is pleased when, conscious of his will, you patiently endure unjust treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you. For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.

“He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.”

1 Peter goes on: “He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.

“He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.”

So when injustice hits, don’t open yourself up to even more attacks by trying to defend yourself. Let Almighty God defend us and grant us justice. Easy to say, but How do we do that?

Remember, we live in a fallen world. Again, the enemy isn’t those who treat us unjustly, but satan. He moves those without God to do terrible things, especially against God’s children. He moves them to lie and deceive, to attack and spread injustice.

Social media is a veritable playground for the enemy’s lies and evil. We’ve all faced attacks there. But make no mistake, it is satan’s lies and evil. He is the enemy, not the people attacking us. So speak God’s Scriptures right to satan. Trust me on this, he will flee.

Prepare your heart and spirit ahead of time. Knowing that we live in a fallen world with fallen people, and knowing that it’s only a matter of time until someone––by the enemy’s prodding or from their own brokenness––treats us unjustly, fortify your heart and spirit with God’s word.

Let Scripture such as the following verses sink deep into your heart and spirit to protect you and keep your focus on God:

“Take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees.  Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.

“Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord…Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you.” (Heb 12:12-14)

“For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed ; the offspring of the wicked will perish. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.” (Psalms 37:28-29)

“And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:7-8)

The last vulnerability we’ll look at is a doozy. In fact, it’s the sin that births many other sins:

C.S. Lewis called pride in ourselves “the utmost evil….the complete anti-God state of mind.”

Scripture is equally harsh in regard to this kind of pride:

Proverbs 8:13 “To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.”

Proverbs 11:2 “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

Proverbs 16:5 “The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.”

In Mark 7: 21-23, Jesus says: “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”

When Jesus says something is vile, that it defiles you, you need to listen up. So…

Let’s face it, ANY TIME pride comes to play in your heart and spirit, you need to deal with it as God commands. Because it’s not just an open door to the enemy’s attacks, it’s a flat-out invitation.

Romans 3:22-31 gives us God’s steps to deal with pride:

First, remember who you are in God’s eyes. Who we all are: “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Who we are, without Christ, is unrighteous sinners. Period. Deserving of punishment and death.

Second, remember why we have any righteousness at all: “…and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

God and His Son Jesus justify us, and they alone deserve adoration and worship. None of us is worthy in and of ourselves. We are made acceptable to God by Christ’s sacrifice. Period.

Third, realize where pride belongs in a life of faith: “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith.”

If it’s not clear to you by now, then let me make it clear. Where does pride belong in a life of faith in Jesus Christ? It doesn’t. At all.

It’s easy to look at all that we’ve talked about and grow discouraged. Especially when we realize that these vulnerabilities aren’t the only ones we have! We humans are full of sin and foibles and failure.

But the truth is God is greater than all of those things. His love, through Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection, has brought us back to Him. And He is there every time we fall, every time we give in to vulnerabilities and end up facing the enemy’s attacks.

We can’t change or deal with these things on our own, but we don’t have to! Jesus is there, ready to shelter us under His wing, to cover us in His righteousness, and to restore us over and over. Because His Holy Father LOVES you, and me, and all of us.

Yes, we need to be ready for the attacks coming out way. But friends, we don’t need to be afraid of the enemy or his attacks. We have already won the victory through Christ, and He will uphold and sustain us. All we need to do is, as the child’s chorus says, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”

Amen

There is no better weapon against satan than Scripture, prayer, and submitting the situation to God.
Share on X

Do you struggle with any of these vulnerabilities? What one thing can you do today to address one of them?

Erin will be at the Florida Christian Writers Conference, in Leesburg, FL, October 16-20, 2024. Hope to see you there!

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

A big thank you to our August sponsor of the month,Tammy Partlow! She’s a speaker at women’s retreats, and her debut novel Blood Beneath the Pines, a suspense set in the deep South, is now available. She’s hard at work on the next book in the series! 

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 220 – Are You Ready for Attacks? Part 3 appeared first on Write from the Deep.

Recentering your writer’s heart is not just a privilege, but a necessity! In our busy lives, it’s easy to get off kilter. We each need to take a moment and examine our focus, to ensure it’s on the only one deserving of our trust: Almighty God. And Psalm 40 is here to help you do exactly that!

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Can you all believe that it’s already the second half of 2024? I don’t know about you guys, but it feels to me like this year is rushing by. If you’re considering a midyear or third quarter review, or you’re taking stock of the things you’ve accomplished, or haven’t yet accomplished, or you’re feeling stuck, or frustrated, or you just want to make sure you’re on the right path, have we got some encouragement for you!

It’s a chance to recenter our hearts and thoughts, and a chance to check our behavior. It’s all conveniently found in Psalm 40. I encourage writers to consider memorizing this psalm—at the least beginning of it—in order to help you dwell on it. Then you can meditate on it even if you don’t have your Bible open or with you. It’s full of life lessons for writers.

“I waited patiently for the Lord…” Psalm 40:1a (CSB)

I love how this Psalm opens. If you remember nothing else, or read no farther in Psalm 40, this alone is still so powerful in the application to our lives as Christians and writers. “I waited patiently.” If only we could look back on our writing career and on our life and say we did that—we waited patiently. 

But we didn’t wait for just anything, we waited for the Lord. God is the one who is in charge of the universe, in charge of our lives, and in charge of our careers. He opens doors, he closes doors, and he leads us in his timing. God will act on our behalf. No matter what our situation is right now, we’re not forgotten, we’re not an afterthought. We just need to wait patiently, because here’s what the rest of verse 1 says:

“…and he turned to me and heard my cry for help.”

God sees and God hears. He’s looking at you even now. Turned to you. Some translations say “inclined” to you. Your cries for help don’t go unheeded. Whatever you’re facing right now, it’s not unknown to God. But we do have to trust in God’s timing and his sovereign plan. Our job is to ask for help and then wait patiently.

Now, we all know this isn’t as easy as it sounds. While we’re trying to wait patiently and trust that God sees, hears, and has a plan, we’re going to be tempted, of course, to fret. To wonder and worry and think about all the things that could go wrong, or all the ways we think God is failing. And that’s exactly what we have to resist. 

Think of this midyear recentering as giving you something positive to do: wait patiently for the Lord, and something negative to resist: fretting and worrying.

When we did our series on being ready for attacks, we talked about knowing our vulnerabilities. This is the same idea. If we’re supposed to wait patiently, we know we’re probably going to be vulnerable to attacks of fret and fear.

Let’s face it, sometimes our patience is needed through some very difficult situations. Here’s how the next verse in Psalm 40 begins:

“He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay…” Psalm 40:2a (CSB)

A desolate pit? Other translations say things like horrible pit, slimy pit, pit of destruction. Now, we know the Christian publishing industry can be difficult, but a pit of death? It can feel that way. For example, what if you feel your career is dying? 

Have you ever felt like the situation you’re facing is hopeless? It might be illness, or a huge publishing nightmare, or a problem you can’t see your way out of. I have great news: God specializes in impossible things.

We might feel like we’re drowning in trials, and it’s okay to acknowledge that life is hard. But don’t forget to catch the first four words of the verse: “He brought me up.” Up from where? From the pit. He always does. You know why? The pit is no match for God’s almighty power. 

But God doesn’t just lift us up, he does more. Listen to the whole verse now:

“He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure.” Psalm 40:2 (CSB)

God acts to help us by lifting us up, and then he sets us in a place of safety and security. We have a God who IS a rock, a fortress. When we walk on the sure foundation of God’s truth, we are secure. 

Even while we know that God is the one who lifts us up and puts us on a secure path, we face the temptation to short circuit waiting by scrambling to find our own way out, to stubbornly force our way onto some path we think will get us out of whatever pit we’re in, whether it’s the path God has for us or not. 

Of course we’re not saying we should never try to help ourselves, only that we should never move ahead of God’s leading in doing so. God has the plan. We need to follow it and resist the temptation to claw our own way out, because our own plan is not placing our feet on the Rock. 

Have you ever wondered why life seems to work this way? Why we face trials and struggles and have to wait on God to help us? We could maybe blame it on Adam and Eve, who thought they’d forge their own path to wisdom and ate the fruit God had forbidden them. That certainly highlights our problem with perspective: We tend to think we know best, and that the one who created us doesn’t.

But when we wait patiently for the Lord, and he brings us up from the pit, and he sets us on a secure path, guess what happens next? He changes our perspective to one that reflects the truth of all reality. Here’s how the next verse in Psalm 40 begins:

“He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” Psalm 40:3a (CSB)

First notice that it’s God who puts the song in our mouths, a song of praise to him. He gives us the right perspective on not just our trials, our writing, and our life, but also on humanity’s place in creation. Big news: We are not God. He is. And he is to be praised. He alone deserves praise for who he is and what he does. In God’s plan, God gets the glory, not us.

Second, when we’re praising God, we’re focusing on him. Our focus has moved off of our pain and difficulty. We have something wonderful to sing about—he’s lifted us up from the pit. And we’re left with gratitude and love for the God who saves us.

Ah, if only that would last! But as humans, we easily slip back into our old ways of thinking. Like the hymn writer of Come Thou Fount says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it…” We need to resist the temptation to hang on to, or drift back into our old patterns of self-sufficiency. That’s hard because it’s ingrained in our culture, this notion that humanity is the savior of itself. That’s a lie. We’re not our savior, God is. We cannot praise God when we’re busy praising ourselves. 

There is an exciting thing about us waiting patiently, and God hearing, acting, and changing our perspective, resulting in us praising him. It’s told in the rest of verse 3:

“Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3b (CSB) 

Our whole experience becomes a witness that can lead others to know and trust in God. 

Our trials are never wasted. First, they change us, but also they are a light shining in the darkness for others to see. That’s astounding. We get to participate in a show of God’s glory, in bringing hope to this weary world.

But as we’ve acknowledged, sometimes the struggles we face are so awful, or it produces such shame that we’d rather no one knew. But this is the very thing we need to resist. We must resist the temptation to hide the reality of our lives.

We need to be transparent so God can show others how he is acting in our lives. Whatever pit we fell into, or whatever ordeal we’ve gone through, that’s all part of who we’ve become and who we’re continuing to become. It’s part of the tapestry that God is weaving of our lives. We need to trust him with that. 

Conveniently, Psalm 40 goes on to tell us what the benefit of trusting God is. Here’s verse 4:

“How happy is anyone who has put his trust in the Lord…” Psalm 40:4a (CSB)

Some translations use the word happy, some use the word blessed. But the idea is this: putting our trust in God means we’re putting ourselves in the care of our almighty, sovereign God, the God who hears us, turns to us, lifts us up from the pit, and changes our perspective. Under God’s protection we can rest and find peace. That’s where we find our state of blessedness, of happiness, even in the midst of difficulties. 

Yes, there is still a caution for us, a temptation to resist. Putting our trust in the Lord means we don’t turn to human wisdom, or self sufficiency for rescue. That’s exactly what the rest of verse 4 says:

“How happy is anyone who has put his trust in the Lord and has not turned to the proud or to those who run after lies!” Psalm 40:4

This can be difficult when our culture is screaming at us to do it all our way, to be “free” of any outside constraint, and trust in ourselves. Or to trust in the current person trying to sell us happiness. We need to resist that if we’re truly going to trust in the Lord.

Is God deserving of that trust? Why? Check out verse 5 of Psalm 40:

“Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.” Psalm 40:5 (NIV)

The God who deserves our trust is the God who’s done wonder upon wonder not just throughout the course of history, but also in a deeply personal way in our own lives.

We are not walking through life facing random events. God is sovereign, and he makes good plans for his people. He’s been doing this since before time began. Our job is to remember this. Remember the works of the Lord recorded in the Bible, but also to remember the works of the Lord in our own lives. To record them, to meditate on them. To sing about them, tell about them, and write stories about them. Acknowledge that God’s works are indeed too many to declare. 

Think about how much God has done for us just today. Our hearts are beating by God’s grace, we’re breathing, oxygen is going to our brains and everywhere else in our bodies. We’re wearing clothes that God provided. Eating food that he gave us. In a shelter he provided. We can hear, see, feel, and think. 

Take a few seconds to consider how you got where you’ve gotten to so far on your writing journey. Consider the hurdles you’ve faced, the knowledge you’ve gained, the experiences you’ve had, both good and bad. How about your journey just to discover your desire to write in the first place, or to hear God telling you to write? What about all the things he planned that led you to that point? If you’re like me, you might’ve had a twenty some-odd year journey to that discovery.

Many are the wonders God has done. But sometimes we forget. Sometimes our memory is just too short. Or perhaps worse, we discount the things God has done.

We’re tempted to think that all those marvels are in the past, and we don’t trust that God has anything else planned. But we have to resist that temptation, because of course he has more plans. He’s God. He has a sovereign plan for everything. You’re not a forgotten secondary character in some other person’s story. God has an arc just for you, and he IS leading you through your own story. 

No one can come in and take it over. No one can sabotage or revise God’s plans. He doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t need an editor. Remember that the verse says, “None can compare with God.” That means he’s the best planner, and the best story-maker. 

So as we head into the remainder of this year, stop and take some time to do a heart check. To recenter your thoughts and hopes on God’s sovereign plans for you and your writing journey. Speak, write, remember, and praise God for the deeds he has already done in your life, and wait expectantly for the amazing deeds he has planned for your future.

Trust us on this. Not just for the rest of this year, but for the rest of your life, you can trust God with every single thing that you face. In your life, and in your career, he’s got you in his hands.

Writers, let Psalm 40 help you recenter your heart on Almighty God. #amwriting #ChristianWriter
Share on X

Erin will be at the Florida Christian Writers Conference, in Leesburg, FL, October 16-20, 2024.

What do you do to recenter your writer’s heart?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

A big thank you to our August sponsor of the month, Tammy Partlow! She’s a speaker at women’s retreats, and her debut novel Blood Beneath the Pines, a suspense set in the deep South, is now available. She’s hard at work on the next book in the series! 

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 219 – Recentering Your Writer’s Heart appeared first on Write from the Deep.

Do you want to know God more intimately and live unafraid? Come join our guest, Grace Fox, as she delves into the many names of God, all with their own meaning and promise. You will find yourself more drawn to Him than ever!

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

We’re told in Scripture that God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, and yet so many of us struggle with that very emotion in our lives. Sometimes even debilitating fear.

Guest Grace Fox is here to share what God has taught her about living unafraid. 

About Grace Fox

Grace Fox is a popular speaker at women’s events internationally. She inspires hope, courage, and transformation through God’s word. She has served as a career missionary for more than 30 years. Grace has written 14 books and published hundreds of articles in magazines.

She’s a member of the First Five Bible Study writing team for P 31 Ministries and is a co-host for a podcast called Your Daily Bible Verse.

Her book, Finding Hope in Crisis: Devotions for Calm in Chaos, won the Golden Scroll Devotional Book of the Year Award in 2021. Keeping Hope Alive: Devotions for Strength in the Storm won the same award in 2022.

Her newest devotional is titled Names of God: Living Unafraid. You can learn all about her at GraceFox.com. 

Thanks to our sponsors on Patreon, we’re able to offer an edited transcript of the podcast! 

Erin: Welcome listeners. We are delighted that you’re here with us today. And you might even hear my smile. We have a guest, Grace Fox, and she’s on a boat somewhere in Canada! 

Karen Ball: In fact, Grace and her husband have been living on their boat for six years, and they have discovered all kinds of people to share God’s love with. Welcome, Grace.     

Grace Fox: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here with you all. 

Erin: Of course, we’re going to start by asking you what ‘the deep’ means to you? 

Grace Fox: It means going into a hard place, and yet it’s a rich place. It’s a place I might not necessarily choose for myself because it might hurt and I don’t like pain, but it’s often in the hard places, the painful places of life, that we grow the most. 

Karen: It’s true. We don’t want to go there. But so often God forces us there, kicking and screaming.  Whenever Erin and I meet together, we read from a devotional called Streams in the Desert.  

What I most appreciate about that devotional is it addresses the fact that, by following Christ, we are members of the fellowship of suffering. Living the Christian life is not easy, but we have an almighty God and Savior who help us to get through it.  

Grace Fox: And maybe the deep shouldn’t be a place we dread or think of it as a frightening place to be. Maybe we should start thinking of it more as a place of invitation, where God says, “Come with me. You wanna know Me better? Let’s go to the deep.” 

Erin: Both are true. It’s hard and it’s great.  So, Grace, we mentioned in our intro that you have a new devotional release about living unafraid. What compelled you to focus on the names of God as a means to overcome fear?

Grace Fox: Back during Covid days, I thought about women being in isolation just like I was. And it occurred to me that maybe they were hungry to fellowship with other women, like I was.

Many years prior I wrote a book called Moving From Fear to Freedom, A Woman’s Guide to Peace in every Situation. And then I had done a Bible study to go with that. 

So pulled that out and put it out there, asking women if they’d like to do the study with me on Zoom.

Eighty women said yes! I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know how to do small groups on Zoom. But a woman who had signed up contacted me and she said, “Grace, do you need help with the technological part of this?” And I said, “Absolutely!”

So off we went with a seven- or eight-week study. And as it came to an end, the ladies were asking what we were going to do next? And I went, “I don’t know. What are we gonna do next?”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But in my own quiet time reading, the names of God just kept coming up. Not any particular names of God, but the words “name of God” or “God’s name.” Such as “in God’s holy name,” or “We will praise God’s name.”

And I kept thinking, what’s the deal? It just kept coming around. Finally I realized God was trying to get my attention. And so I offered that––to study God’s names together. I wrote the curriculum as we went, week by week.

It was a massive undertaking, but I learned so much and saw how there is tons of material to explore. 

When I met my managing editor around that time, she asked me for other book ideas. I pulled up my laptop and went through a list of what I’d been studying.

She listened and when I said, “What about a book on the names of God?” She said, “Yes, Let’s do that.” So that’s how this was born. 

It’s actually a devotional study. It’s seven chapters, written in a devotional style, with stories and biblical teaching and a prayer and questions at the end of each chapter. It’s a Bible study for groups or individuals.

I envision somebody sitting across the table having coffee with a friend and doing this, maybe one-on-one as a discipleship tool. And then there’s a QR code at the end of each chapter where you just point your camera and up will come a fifteen-minute video teaching.

Karen: How fun!

Grace Fox: I’ve learned so much about the names of God and how understanding each one can change our lives. Because understanding God’s character frees us to live unafraid.

Erin: I really like the notion of studying God’s names, because God’s name is who He is, but it’s also what He does. And if we connect those things better we can apply who He is to our situation, and understand how who He is affects who we are and what we need. So I love how it’s all woven together.

Grace Fox: Years and years ago, my husband and I were missionaries back in Nepal. Our son was born there, and then on our second child was born, but she had hydrocephalus––too much water on the brain.

The doctors told us we had to take her back to North America on the first flight available for a surgery to save her life. Well, back then there weren’t a lot of international flights. Maybe one every three days or so.

Then, when the airline found out I had had a C-section to deliver this baby, they refused to take me because I was a medical high risk. They didn’t want me, or my less-than-two-week-old baby on their plane. But my husband and the doctors said our little girl would die if she didn’t get back.

So my husband wrapped our daughter in a big blanket, and took one bottle of breast milk and a diaper bag. That’s all he had. He left, but I had to stay behind for another eight days.

Sitting on that bed, after saying good-bye to my newborn daughter, not knowing if I would see her alive again or not, I cried out to God, asking what He wanted me to learn.

Well, one week prior, we’d interviewed with a career mission agency to stay in Nepal for the rest of our lives. And now…that was not gonna happen. And it was that fast that everything changed. 

In that very, very dark moment, the lyrics of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” came to mind. And I got to where I could kind of sing along. Not with my whole heart and mind, but I was hanging on for dear life to God’s faithfulness 

I wondered what was going to happen to our family. We were going back to North America with no job, no car, no house. We didn’t even have a health insurance for a North American hospital, and we were gonna have a baby in the NICU ward! 

That was the life-changing aha! moment for me, a young woman in my mid-twenties. I either had to believe those lyrics, that God is faithful, or not. And if they weren’t true, then we were in serious trouble. 

But if they were true, then everything would be okay. It didn’t mean our daughter would live. It didn’t promise me that she would have a good quality of life. But God would be faithful to see us through, no matter what. And I hung onto that.

Since then, I’ve believed with all my heart that our understanding of who God is, well, that’s the most important understanding we can have. Which means we have to ensure that understanding is based not on our feelings, not on our circumstances, not on what somebody else says, but on truth.

And that’s what gets us through those hard and deep places.

Erin: Exactly. What do we have if not that truth? We have nothing.  So, let’s talk about the process of writing and studying all of these things.  What kind of affect did that have on your own spiritual journey as a writer?

Grace Fox: This book has seven of God’s names, but there are so many more. When I thought about Yahweh Rohi, The Lord is my Shepherd, I realized that every time I write a book, I go into it with a great deal of fear.  I think it’s fear of failure, like, Oh no, I landed a contract! What if I fail?

That’s when I remember Yahweh Rohi, The Lord is my Shepherd. I have all I need. My Shepherd will give me what I need to do this job. 

I will trust Him to lead me to the right research and the right resources. I might have somebody who I think will be a good interview for a particular chapter, but inevitably Yahweh Rohi flips it upside down and brings in somebody else whose story is a better fit. 

What’s more, I have to be open to that––to follow His guidance as my Shepherd, to follow His lead and to know that He’s not gonna lead me down some path with a dead end.         

He’s going to lead me down the right path to this pasture that is green and it’s gonna feed not only my soul as I write it, but it’s also gonna feed the souls of the readers.

Karen: There’s the perfect answer to that question, “What if I fail?” Yahweh Rohi. The Lord is my Shepherd. I can’t fail. He has called me and guided me to write this. I don’t need to worry about failing. I just need to pay attention and to listen. 

Grace Fox: Exactly. I mean, think about the cast sheep. That’s the sheep that just flips over on its back and it can’t get up. So it’s in a very vulnerable position. 

Sometimes a sheep like that will lie there and kick and flounder and cry out, bleating for the shepherd’s help. Unless the shepherd comes to help, the cast sheep will die. 

As a writer, I’ve been that sheep in that cast position. Several years ago I had such high hopes for one book that I’d written. I thought it was going to come out of the gate and be a bestseller and I’d be set for life and all that, yada yada. But it didn’t happen. Not at all.

Two years into it, my agent had to release some clients because of her life and needs at that point. And I was one of those she said good-bye to. Well, that broke my heart. Then I heard that this book that I had all the high hopes for was going to be remaindered. And I thought, Oh, all that work for nothing!

I went into a pit. I was the sheep on my back, lying there with its legs floundering and crying, “Oh God, I don’t get it. I had better hopes for this.” One day, I even thought, Maybe I’m done writing, maybe this is it. This is the end. 

I cried out again to my Shepherd. “God, you gotta help me here. Would You show me if I’m done? Because if I’m done writing, I’m okay with that. If I’m not, then You need to tell me, because I’m okay with persevering too, but I just wanna know so I’m not wasting my energy anymore.” 

Five hours later––five hours––my phone rang and it was a woman I didn’t even know. She said, “Grace, for some reason I feel compelled to call you. I’ve never called an author before, but today I can’t get this out of my head. I need to tell you that your book, Moving from Fear to Freedom, changed my life.

“I also feel compelled to tell you this, for whatever this is about, so just take it or leave it. I feel compelled to say, please keep writing.”

I burst into tears. I told her why I was crying, what I had prayed five hours before. And then she started crying and said, “I heard the spirit.”

“You not only heard him, but you did something about it.”

She was afraid what I would think of her if she just called me. But she did it anyway. Wow. And I needed the words she spoke.  It was my most amazing God moment ever as a writer.

That was 10 or 12 years ago, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve grown weary, but I’ll never again think it’s over. Not until God makes it that clear that it’s done. 

Karen: Over the years, I’ve had authors come to me and ask if I think they’re finished writing. My first response is to ask who gave him or her the task to write in the first place? If their answer is God, then I ask if He’s set them free from that task. The answer is usually no, or the reasons they think they’re done.

But I ask again if God has set them free. More often than not, the answer is no. “Then you’re not done.” 

I understand the frustration and weariness, but God doesn’t call us to be bestselling authors. He calls us to write His words and truth for whomever will read it and be blessed by it. 

Grace Fox: Yep. So there might be a writer out there listening to this who feels like that little cast sheep and to that dear writer, I would say just call out to the Shepherd and He will come. He will come and put you back on your feet.

Part of a shepherd’s job is to massage the sheep to get that circulation going until that sheep is able to run again. Jesus, our Shepherd, our Yahweh Rohi, knows what we writers need to get back on our feet so that we can run again. 

Understand the Shepherd Aspect of God

Erin: Amen. How kind and gentle and loving He is to give us what we need in those moments. Like the shepherd rubbing and massaging the sheep, when Jesus was here, walking on Earth, He was going places, meeting people, touching the leper…

We would have less fear if we understood that Shepherd aspect of Jesus more deeply, that he is going to take care of us. My favorite thing about the shepherd is the place of rest. My Shepherd leads me beside quiet waters and makes me lie down in green pastures.

It’s such a picture of calm. 

Publishing is difficult and can be stressful and fraught with problems, but if we’re doing it with God, it’s also a place of rest. And if we would hang on to that, it would make such a difference. And that’s just one of the names you cover! 

Karen: Another name that you explore is just Yahweh, and the meaning you give is I Am Who I Am. Who else can say that but God? I Am Who I Am. You know, we spend so much time trying to “find” ourselves. God never has to do that. He knows who He is. 

So when I pray, if I’m feeling uncertain, I can go to the I Am, Who is the biggest and the best and the most powerful of anyone who has ever existed. And I can rest in Him and in the promise that nothing is going to change Him. He is God.

Erin: Yeah, that’s very cool. Another name that I really liked was Yahweh Tzevaot. I might not pronounce it right, but it means the Lord of Hosts. Can you talk about that one just a little bit? 

Grace Fox: You did well pronouncing that name. That is the name that comes to mind when we think about David fighting Goliath, when David says, “You come to me with with your javelin and with all your armor, but I come to you in the name of the Lord, my God.”

The Israelite army turned around and ran from Goliath’s taunts. The entire army. Twice a day for 40 days, whenever Goliath came out and taunted them. 

When David, this little teenage shepherd boy showed up, he says, “What’s the problem here?”

What’s the problem? Goliath is defying the army of the living God, and that’s a problem! So David picks up his five little smooth stones and takes Goliath out with a slingshot!

David really got it. He fought that battle in the name of the Lord of hosts, the Lord of heaven’s armies.

If you’re looking at all the challenges with marketing or writing a book, or maybe you’re a newer writer trying to break into publishing, and it feels like a Goliath before you. But if God has called us to do this, then do it in the name of the Lord of hosts! 

He goes before us. He’s the one who gives us courage. He’s the one who fights on our behalf. We don’t do this alone. 

Karen: When we come to challenges, we need to see through the eyes of eternity, not the eyes of this temporal world.

If you look at where the world is today, it’s easy to be discouraged and to feel as though everything’s out of control. There’s so much hatred and so much violence, and yet if we turn our gaze to God and we see Him in all of these names and that He does, we don’t need to be afraid.

We don’t need to despair. We know that God is all knowing. We know that God is ever present. We know that in all of his names and in all of the things that He does, He is working for our best. He is working to make us into clearer reflections of His son. 

So, Grace, as we draw our time to a close,  do you have any final words of wisdom for our listeners? 

Grace Fox: I would just sign off using the name El Elyon. And that one is God is a Creator, Almighty God. Because he is a creator, he owns it all. So it’s his right to do with it what he wants, right? 

And that’s true about our writing career, our endeavors. That’s true about our lives. When we belong to Him, He owns us. He bought us with the blood of Jesus Christ. We need to surrender to that, to be good with that and learn to rest in that. 

Also that name denotes the fact that He is the boss, therefore He always has the final say. When we as writers look at what’s before us, look at our dreams, look at our endeavors or whatever, always remember He decides the outcome.

So we can strive and strive and strive, but He gets the final say. And don’t compare with other people’s journey, but rest in contentment knowing that He’s got us. He’s our Shepherd. He holds us close to His heart and He will have the final say.  

Karen: Amen! 

Erin: Amen to that.

Names of God: Living Unafraid by Grace Fox

I cried out to God, asking what He wanted me to learn. #amwriting #Christianwriter
Share on X

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

How can you start today to live unafraid?

THANK YOU!

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible! If you want to add your support, visit patreon.com/writefromthedeep.  We’d sure appreciate it!

Thanks so much to our July sponsor of the month, Wendy L. Macdonald. She’s a writer, poet, podcaster, photographer, a maker of journals (find her on Etsy to see them!) and nature lover. I know you’d enjoy getting to know her! Check out the treasury of her website at wendyLmacdonald.com.

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

STAY CONNECTED

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 218 – How to Live Unafraid with Guest Grace Fox appeared first on Write from the Deep.

Fasting. We’ve all heard of it, and yet we rarely do it. But this ancient practice is frequently mentioned in the Bible, with Jesus himself leading the way. He did it, he taught about it, and he presumed we’d follow in his footsteps. Join us for a deeper look at this vital aspect of discipleship and why it matters for writers. We’ll even discuss alternatives to try if your medical condition prevents you from practicing typical methods of fasting.

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

We’ve been talking about various practices for deepening our relationship with God. Here are links to our past episodes about Rest-211, Prayer 208, Silence-205, Solitude 199, and Fellowship 214 if you missed them. Today we want to cover a practice that isn’t the first choice for most of us. It’s certainly not comfortable, and often put off or not done at all. What is it? Fasting. 

Now, hang in there with us, because while fasting typically involves abstaining from food for a period of time, we’re well aware that some folks, Karen included, have medical issues that make it unsafe, even life threatening, to skip meals. So in this episode, we’ll also cover alternatives to traditional fasting.

First, let’s talk about why fasting matters. I mean, who thought of this? And why?

I’ll sum up my research findings in one sentence: I couldn’t find any source that claimed to know exactly when the practice of fasting started. New World Encyclopedia just says, “Fasting for religious and spiritual reasons has been a part of human custom since pre-history.” 

But it is also found in various ancient written records—including the Old and New Testaments. 

How often is fasting mentioned in the Bible? An article on cslewisinstitute.org lists many occasions:

In Deuteronomy chapter 9, Moses recounts how he did not one but two 40-day fasts when he was meeting with God on Mt. Sinai after leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

In Daniel 10:3, in response to an overwhelming, terrifying vision, Daniel talks about his partial fast for 21 days and says, “I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.” After this he received the meaning of the vision.

Here’s what it says in Ezra 8:21-23 when Ezra is leading a group of exiles from Babylon back to Jerusalem: “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, ‘The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.’ So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.” ESV

In the book of Esther, when Haman succeeded in getting a law published to kill all the Jews, Esther was going to go to the king to plead for mercy, but appearing before him without being summoned was punishable by death unless the king held out his scepter to her. So here’s what she tells her uncle, Mordecai: “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” Esther 4:16 ESV

Another fast during a national emergency happens in the time of King Jehoshaphat. A giant army made up of different people groups has come against them, and this is the king’s response in 2 Chronicles 20:3-4: “Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.” ESV

The result of this fast? God delivered them—they didn’t even need to fight the battle because the opposing armies killed each other off.

Fasting is found in the New Testament, too. Mark chapter 1 tells us Jesus himself fasted in the wilderness for 40 days. And Jesus’ teaching on fasting in Matthew chapters 6 and 9 make it clear that he expects this to be a normal practice for his followers after his crucifixion.

In Acts chapter 9, Saul, later to be called the apostle Paul, fasts for three days after being blinded after his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus.

In Acts 13, God’s instructions to launch the first missionary journey come during the course of prayer and fasting, and Paul and Barnabus are then sent off with another round of prayer and fasting. And it’s clear that fasting was a regular part of their journey. Acts 14:23 says, “And when [Paul and Barnabus] had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

We won’t take the time to give detailed examples of prominent fasting Christians in the centuries after the Bible was written, but we will point out that John Calvin, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and C.S. Lewis were all enthusiastic supporters and practicers of fasting.

One more thing we should make clear. The article on cslewisinstitute.org states that the Bible specifically defines fasting as going without food. Here’s how they put it: “In the Old Testament, the main Hebrew word used is tsom, which means ‘to abstain from food.’ In the New Testament, the Greek word we translate as ‘fast’ is nesteuo, which means ‘to abstain from eating.’ In both testaments, fasting is simply going without food in order to seek God for some special reason.”

The reason they stress this definition is because this is what the actual practice was and is: going without food. This is what the Israelites did, this is what Jesus did, and it’s what he’s teaching about. So, if your health allows, this is the normal way to practice fasting.

But again, we know not everyone can physically do this, so we’ll also discuss alternatives.

First, let’s circle back to the purpose of this practice. The article on cslewisinstitute.org says it’s “to seek God for some special reason.” So, why would fasting help us do that?

1. Fasting helps us divorce ourselves from the ordinary pleasures and occupations of this world. 

Dallas Willard, in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, which we’ve mentioned in previous episodes, writes this: “[Fasting] teaches us a lot about ourselves very quickly…it reveals to us how much our peace depends upon the pleasures of eating.” 

Justin Whitmel Earley, in his book The Common Rule, adds, “Fasting is a way to resist the original sin of trying to eat our way to happiness…”

Earley goes on to describe how he feels during a day of fasting: “It’s midmorning when I become irritable. Not only am I trying to concentrate over a hungry stomach, but I also can’t do what I otherwise do every day: look forward to lunch or snacks as a way to medicate the pain of toilsome work.”

He continues describing the discomfort of his day, then he sums it up with this: “When I fast I see that deep down I’m not actually a very patient person after all. I’m not actually a very content person after all…I’m a weak, impatient, angry person who medicates with food and drink. This is painful to confront. Yet to live without fasting is to live without knowing who I truly am.”

Knowing our weaknesses is humbling, but that’s right where we need to be in order to effectively seek God. Which leads to the second reason fasting helps us seek God.

2. Fasting reminds us that we are humbly dependent on God.

We’re dependent on God for everything. Acts 17:25 (NIV) tells us, “[God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”

God supplies our daily bread, our clothes, our homes, our jobs, our stories, our words, our talents and abilities, our book sales, our readers.

Dallas Willard writes, “Persons well used to fasting as a systematic practice will have a clear and constant sense of their resources in God.”

That’s exactly what we need as Christians, a better connection to the reality of God as our constant provider. 

But there’s more. Willard goes on to say that this connection and constant sense developed through the systematic practice of fasting will help us “…endure deprivations of all kinds, even to the point of coping with them easily and cheerfully.”

Imagine what coping cheerfully and easily with deprivations could look like if, say, you find you have to type your next book with one hand because you’ve developed carpal tunnel syndrome in the other? Or if the time you thought you had to write gets cut in half because of an unforeseen family emergency? Or if you lose your publishing contract? Or your day job? Or you have to tighten your belt due to the crazy inflation these days? Or whatever else. 

3. Fasting helps us feast on God.

But God is more than just the giver of stuff we need. Dallas Willard writes, “Fasting confirms our utter dependence on God by finding in him a source of sustenance beyond food…In fasting we learn how to suffer happily as we feast on God.”

So, fasting helps us see God as more than a provider of resources, but actually as sustenance itself. 

Look at Deuteronomy 8:3 where Moses speaks to the Israelites before they head into the Promised Land: “[God] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Now fast forward to the New Testament and look at what Jesus says about this bread of God in John 6, verses 33 and 51 (ESV): “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

So, fasting helps us seek God by seeking to feast on him. On who he is, on what he’s done, and on what he will keep doing throughout eternity.

Look at what Psalm 36:7-9 says: “…The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” ESV

Not only can we feast on God, we can also feast on doing God’s will. In John chapter 4, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well in Samaria, while his disciples have gone to the village to buy food. When they come back, they urge him to eat. Here’s what he says, “…I have food to eat that you do not know about” (John 4:32 ESV). So the disciples are trying to figure out if someone brought him food while they were gone. But then: “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.’” (John 4:34 ESV) 

I love how Dallas Willard sums this up. When we fast, he writes, “We learn that we too have meat to eat that the world does not know about. Fasting unto our Lord is therefore feasting—feasting on him and on doing his will.”

4. Fasting helps remind us to pray and serve.

None of what we’ve said so far means we won’t actually experience the discomfort of hunger. We typically do. But one way those hunger pangs can help us seek God is by being a consistent reminder to pray. As we go about the busyness of life, the habit of praying can be something that becomes superficially brief, or put off until we have more time, or forgotten altogether. But prayer is key in communicating with God, so the reminder to pray that hunger brings can help us foster more constant interaction with God.

And hey, if we don’t have to spend time making dinner and eating it, well, we’ve just freed up more time to spend with God.

Another benefit of the discomfort of fasting is that it can help us tune in to the needs of others. Here’s what Justin Whitmel Earley writes of his own experience returning home from a day at work when he’s been fasting, “I come home [at dinner time] not expecting to eat. I’m simply expecting to serve other people as they eat. The most remarkable part is that I’m actually happier that way, because all along I’ve been thinking that food makes me happy. But now I see that only love does that. When that switch happens, ironically one of my favorite things to do is cook for other people when I’m fasting.”

5. Fasting helps us empathize with the suffering of others.

You all will likely find other benefits of fasting that we didn’t have time to cover, but one last benefit we want to mention is that fasting gives us empathy with those who are suffering. That, in turn, expands our capacity and tenacity in our prayers for the needs of those around us.

Justin Whitmel Earley writes, “When we fast, we become more attuned to the stubborn reality of the world’s suffering…while there is a part of fasting that reveals our own needs, there is a part that reveals the world’s need, too…fasting is a way to lean past our own emptiness and into someone else’s. It’s a practice of empathy, of willingly walking into pain for someone else. It’s an imitation of Christ…” 

Now, for those of you who can’t fast—either for physical or mental health reasons—remember the goal as you’re looking for a suitable alternative. As Justin Whitmel Earley puts it, you want to “lean into the lack.” 

One idea, instead of not eating, might be to eat very simple meals.

You can follow what Daniel did, and rather than abstain from all foods, you can choose certain foods to abstain from. Maybe especially those we consume for pleasure rather than healthy sustenance. We need protein everyday, but does it need to come from whatever your favorite source is? What about things like soda? Refined sugar? Chocolate? Potato Chips? These are things we like the taste of, we eat them for pleasure rather than nutritional value.

In The Spirit of the Disciplines, Willard writes, “The desert fathers such as St. Antony often subsided for long periods of time on bread and water…” but he also cautions that “their ‘bread’ was much more substantial than we have today.”

So you might not want to eat just store bought white bread! But what is the simplest meal that can supply the basic nutrients you need? The goal is to experience discomfort, to be humbled, to focus on God as our fullness.

Another alternative, and something that can also be done in conjunction with simple meals, is to not eat between meals—if your medical condition makes that possible. I know I have the habit of grazing. My watch tells me it’s time to stand because I’ve been sitting too long, so I get up and walk to my kitchen where I eat a nice little snack. Which, when you analyze that, is probably counterproductive. For the most part, I don’t need those snacks. I just like them.

Kelly Minter, in her Bible study Encountering God: Cultivating Habits of Faith Through the Spiritual Disciplines writes this: “When we fast, we’re practicing the needed discipline of saying no to ourselves and yes to God.”

For alternatives to fasting from food, what other things can we say no to? Well, we can say no to entertainment. No TV, no phone games, no social media scrolling for birds and puppies and other fun videos, no Spotify, Pandora, or Podcasts, no reading for pleasure, going to the movies, sporting events, or whatever you do for fun. Take a whole day off, and rather than seeking distraction, seek only God, his presence, his words, his direction. Learn to delight in God, and only God. 

What are the things in your life that take up time? Things you look forward to and would miss? 

For example, suppose you’re an extroverted person who hates to be alone and spends lots of time getting together with friends. Maybe you can choose to stay home one night a week instead—stay home and have a date with God.

Or, maybe you like to go out and shop. You don’t even necessarily buy things, although maybe sometimes you do. But instead of hitting the mall to look around and see what’s new, you abstain for 40 days. Instead, you use that time to stay home and seek God.

There are probably lots of other alternatives out there we can think of if we give it more personalized time and thought. Ask God to show you. The point is to practice fasting—in whatever way your health allows—and incorporate it into your spiritual life. As Dallas Willard writes, “…[F]asting is one of the more important ways of practicing that self-denial required of everyone who would follow Christ (Matthew 16:24).”

Kelly Minter sums up her reasoning for fasting this way in her Bible Study Encountering God: “I believe we can and should fast for guidance, healing, direction, intercession, in pursuit of spiritual breakthroughs, and more. But I believe one of the greatest reasons we can fast is simply in pursuit of a deeper experience with Christ.”

Fasting. We’ve all heard of it, and yet we rarely do it. Take a deeper look at this vital aspect of discipleship and why it matters for writers. #amwriting #Christianwriter
Share on X

Do you practice fasting? What do you find to be the best thing about it?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Thanks so much to our July sponsor of the month, Wendy L. Macdonald. She’s a writer, poet, podcaster, photographer, a maker of journals (find her on Etsy to see them!) and nature lover. I know you’d enjoy getting to know her! Check out the treasury of her website at wendyLmacdonald.com.

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 217 – Why Fasting Matters for Writers appeared first on Write from the Deep.

As we discussed last week, there are things happening in our country and around the world that many of us never believed could happen. Riots, protests, increasing terrorist activity, science being ignored and twisted, vitriol becoming the norm toward any who disagree with society’s agendas… all of which we’ll tackle. Along with how to prepare for the enemy’s attacks!

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

It seems insane, but in reality, it’s not. It’s warfare. Spiritual warfare. And the “enemy” is not people who have bought into the insanity. It’s not even the people spewing hatred and violence against those with whom they disagree. The enemy, plain and simple, is the creature known as satan. That “father of lies” who seeks to devour and destroy any who believe in God and stand for His truth. 

You may have already experienced attacks against your heart and soul, attacks designed to undermine your faith and immobilize you as one who writes or speaks truth.

If you haven’t, know that the time may well come when you will. When you’ll be asked to surrender God’s truth, exchanging it for lies and deception. Such things are already happening to Christian writers. So the question is, are you ready? 

So, how do you prepare for whatever the enemy throws your way? First, you must know where you’re vulnerable. Here are some common vulnerabilities along with possible solutions to help you overcome them. 

Whether you’re feeling weak physically, emotionally, or spiritually, these are moments that leave us open to attacks. And we’ve all been there…those times we’ve done everything we know to do in our work as writers, and nothing seems to be working out. 

When we are dealing with illness or injury, and feel as though we’ll never be strong again. When we’re worn down from trials or battles or just life, so tired of the struggle, so weak, that’s when doubts come knocking at our heart’s door. So let’s consider solutions for those three types of weakness: Physical, emotional, and spiritual.

It’s so tempting, when we’re weak physically, to believe we just…can’t. Can’t work, can’t write, can’t deal with people or relationships, can’t do anything we want to do. Which is why it’s so important to take even small steps to refresh and restore yourself. To steal yourself against attacks when you’re weak. Some things you can do:

 Get Moving. It may seem counter-intuitive, but exercise can help when you’re feeling weak physically. I know how much I just want to sleep when I’m in this place, but then I remember what my dad always told me: “Talk a walk before you take a nap. You’ll be surprised how much better you feel.” And you know what, he was right. 

 Rest. Sometimes, though, you really do need to just rest. I (Erin) suffer from bouts of chronic fatigue. When they hit, I can’t do anything BUT rest. I don’t necessarily mean sleeping,  although that can be helpful, but by finding a restorative place or activity to rest and relax.

Sometimes I just sit on my deck or on  my couch and watch the birds. Sometimes I just lie on the floor in my bedroom—cuz it has cozy carpet—and I shut out everything in my mind and look out the window at the sky and trees and think about one Bible verse and let God’s presence and his Word give me rest. God is the source of our ultimate rest and protection against the enemy’s attacks.

I know we’re talking about physical weakness, but for me, my mind is very much a part of that physicality.

For me (Karen), that’s often my back porch, where I can watch the birds, listen to the wind rustling the trees, and see my flowers growing. 

 Hydration. Believe it or not, sometimes that weakness is simply dehydration. According to FamilyDoctor.org, “Your body depends on water to survive. Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water to work properly.

“For example, your body uses water to maintain its temperature, remove waste, and lubricate your joints. Good hydration is important for overall good health.”

See Your Doctor. If this weakness goes on for too long, it’s always a good idea to see your doctor. You might have something going on that needs medical intervention.

Emotional weakness or exhaustion comes when the stresses in our lives wear us down. If you’re at a place where you think you can’t handle one more bad or hard thing, where you’re at the “end of your rope,” you may be facing emotional exhaustion. 

The devastating consequences of this particular weakness is that we often get the sense that we have little to no power over our own lives. That we just have to take the hits, no matter how long they keep on coming. And we all know how it seems impossible to be creative and write in the face of emotional exhaustion! 

Find Power in Prayer. Regardless of your feelings, you do have power. Because you have prayer. When you take your emotional exhaustion to the Father, when you lay it at His feet and ask for mercy, He will answer you. No, that doesn’t necessarily mean things will suddenly be better. But it does mean He will uplift and strengthen you. He promises you that in Isaiah 40:29-31:   

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” 

Let Friends Help. I know, I know, it’s hard to ask for help. Expecially when you’re emotionally weak. But just make one phone call. Send one email. Reach out to one person who you know will respond. Ask for company, prayer, Scriptures…whatever you need.

You don’t have to go through this alone. Nor should you. Hanging out with people who truly love you, who are as comfortable with your silence as with your talking, who are willing to just be with you can be powerfully restorative. 

Journal. Hey, we’re writers, yes? So write what you’re feeling and why. Write out prayers to God. Write down helpful Scripture or quotes. It can help you in so many ways, from getting it out of your head and onto paper to helping you better understand what you’re going through.  

Take a break. Get away from everyone and everything. Find a safe place to be with God and seek His restoration and healing. 

Ah, spiritual weakness. This, above all others, is the most attractive weakness to satan . He is delighted when we fall into this vulnerability, and believe you me, he will attack this weakness with vigor. 

As much as we hate to admit it, we are all susceptible to this vulnerability. But why? Well, often because we don’t truly understand the nature of God.  

Two of my favorite moments in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia are when:

(1)   Lucy asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe. His response? “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

(2)   When Mr. Tumnus adds, “He’s wild, you know. Not a tame lion.”

 As much as we talk about understanding that God’s ways are not our ways, that His thoughts are not our thoughts, we still often hold expectations that God will be…safe. Tame. That He’ll do what makes sense to us. And when that doesn’t happen, in whatever way it may happen, we’re shocked. Disappointed. And doubts start to creep in. 

If God’s all good, then why did He let this happen? 

If God loves me, why didn’t He protect me?

Where was God when this happened?

If God can allow innocents to be slaughtered, He must not be good. 

And on and on we go, measuring God by our standards, our expectations, and our human thought processes. Which often leads us straight into spiritual weakness. 

Some of the signs that you’re feeling spiritually weak. You: 

If you’re in this kind of place, here are some possible solutions:

Seek sound counsel. Go to those who you know will listen to your struggles and questions without condemning you. Be honest with them about your feelings and the reasons for them. Then let them give you biblical counsel and guidance.  

Read Hebrews. Why Hebrews, especially? Jon Bloom on desiringGod.org explains: “I love Hebrews for many reasons. I love how it radiates with the transcendent glory of God the Son. I love its magisterial grasp of how the old covenant is fulfilled and surpassed by the new covenant. And I love the beautiful, compelling portrait of the cloud of witnesses, who by their remarkable examples call us to live by faith in the unfailing promises of our faithful God.” 

He goes on to say, “I also love Hebrews because it is a letter to weary Christians, some of whom are standing right on the cliff’s edge, tempted to ‘throw away [their] confidence, which has a great reward’ (Hebrews 10:35).”

Be honest with God. Pray and let God know what you’re feeling, why you’re struggling. God can handle all our doubts and frustrations, our anger and despair. In The Message, Matthew 11:28-30 tells us:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” 

Give Yourself Time. Dealing with these soul-deep questions and struggles takes time. Don’t get down on yourself if it takes longer than you want to find peace in the situation. Remember that God is with you, He loves you without reserve, and He will guide you home. 

So what are other vulnerabilities we need to watch for? Here’s an interesting one:

I know, at first that doesn’t seem to make sense.  But have you ever gone to a Christian writers’ conference or retreat? There’s such a high when we’re surrounded by people who share our beliefs and trust in God. Who share our passion for writing about Him and His truth. It’s exhilarating! And the worship together is profound. God is RIGHT THERE!  

But what happens next? You get home, and boom! There are bills to pay, kids to parent, spouses to listen to, chores to be done. All normal life, but you miss that unity of purpose, that gathering with people who really get you. And the contrast is so profound that you start to feel alone. Even when surrounded by those who love you.  

These emotional letdowns are perfectly normal, but if we aren’t careful, they can open a door to the prowling lion. 

Realize you’re dealing with emotions, which are true to how we feel, but aren’t always reliable in terms of what the Bible says is true. Speak God’s truth into those emotions. Thank God for the time you shared with those of like minds and passions. Savor the time you had together, the lessons you learned.

But recognize that ultimately your relationship with God is between just you and Him. Get to know Him as well as you know your friends and family. Spend as much time alone with Him as you do with others that you love. And remember that while your family and friends may not “get you” like other writers, they love you. 

Spend time with other believers. It may not have the same impact as a conference or retreat, but being with other believers in a Bible study or fellowship group may help. Sometimes just being with a Christian friend, even for a short amount of time, can help as well. Go for a walk together, go out to dinner, even just sit and talk. 

Remember you’re never really alone. The God who knit you together with other believers is always right there beside you. He is always ready to talk, to listen, and to show you His love. He’s waiting for you. Listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 27:8, and I love how the New Living Translation puts it: “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.’” 

We’ve got more vulnerabilities to explore, but that’s for a future podcast. For now, friends, let Psalm 27:8 be your response to your loving Father. “Lord, I am coming.” In every vulnerability, in every attack the enemy throws at you, “Lord, I am coming.”

Take it all to Him, lay it in His all-powerful hands, and walk away covered in His promises and grace. He will NEVER abandon you. No matter what circumstances seem to say, the Lord has spoken His truth and promises over you. And nothing the enemy does can erase or stop them. 

Amen

What is one vulnerability you strengthen against attacks?

How should we as writers prepare ourselves for the enemy’s attacks? Know our vulnerabilities and what to do about them.
Share on X

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Special thanks to our June sponsor of the month, June sponsor of the month Kimberley Woodhouse! She’s an award-winning and bestselling author of more than forty books.  Her books have been awarded the Carol Award, Holt Medallion, Reader’s Choice Award, Selah Award, Spur Award, Christian Market Book Award, Golden Scroll Award among others.

A popular speaker/teacher, she’s shared with over 1,000,000 people at more than twenty-five hundred venues across the country. Check out her latest book: Set in Stone available now and we’ll link to it in the show notes!

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 216 – Are You Ready for Attacks? Part 2 appeared first on Write from the Deep.

So much of what’s happening in the world today is mind- and spirit-boggling. Things we never expected to see or experience in “The Land of the Free” are happening left, right, and center. Attacks on freedoms and faith are on the rise.

As writers, we need to understand what is causing all this. As Believers, we need to know how to prepare ourselves to respond.

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

I love watching old movies about America being a bastion for free speech, supporting the downtrodden, and protecting those who’ve been beat down. I miss those days. Sure, America is still is all of that to a certain degree, but much has changed.

180 degrees.

Recently we’ve seen something I never thought to see in my lifetime: people in the world of academia––students and professors––screaming hate-filled antisemitism, calling for the death of Jewish people. Such hate speech would not have been tolerated even a few years ago..

But even hate speech is covered by the first amendment. Unless it includes:

All of which have taken place in the recent anti-Israel protests on college campus.

For example, a Cornell University student was arrested for posting threats to shoot and stab Jewish people on campus, and to “shoot up” the Kosher dining room. (He was kicked out of the college after being arrested.)

Over the past ten years or so, we’ve also seen traditional and Christian beliefs attacked with increasing vehemence. Those who find such beliefs offensive spew vitriol and organize to criminalize those whose beliefs offend them. Are you ready for such attacks?

In 2023, Newsweek reported on a new poll from the Buckley Institute, which surveyed students at four-year colleges. The results of this poll?

“Young Americans are turning their backs on basic American principles of free speech, tolerance, and due process, in a way that’s so drastic it genuinely endangers the future of our political order. And this disintegration is only accelerating.

“The Buckley Institute has conducted this poll for nine years, yet this year, for the first time ever, more students support shouting down speakers they disagree with than oppose this kind of mob censorship…”

The article goes on to say, “What’s more, 46 percent of students now believe that ‘offensive’ opinions should get other students reported to the university administration…and more than 50 percent of students literally believe certain topics should be banned from being debated on campus.

“There’s also an alarming violent twist to the censoriousness rising among Gen Z college students. A whopping 45 percent of students told pollsters it is justified to use physical violence to prevent people from expressing hate speech or making racially charged comments.

“This radical, un-American idea is only becoming more popular: Back in 2017, for example, only 30 percent of students supported this same proposition.”

Something else I never thought I’d see in American is citizens being jailed, but rather than being given their rights to defend themselves, they are incarcerated for an indeterminant amount of time with no way to defend themselves or pursue justice.

Or people who demand we “follow the science” on one issue completely ignoring it when it comes to what gender people are. Try to argue, and you get attacked. Especially on social media.

These changes in America toward elitism and intolerance don’t stop with politics.

Are you ready for an attack in your church? Hostility and violence against churches in America is at an all-time high, according to a recent Family Research Council report. They documented more than 430 incidents in 2023—more than double the number in 2022.

That’s an 800% increase in incidents since 2018 and an average of 39 attacks every month!

Christian-owned businesses have been sued for not accepting jobs that go against their beliefs. Chick-fil-A has been picketed and harassed for designating some of its charitable giving to churches and church-related organizations that hold to the biblical view of marriage.

In fact, San Antonio blacklisted the company from doing business in their city for not supporting LGBTQ charities.

Christian writers have lost contracts because they won’t revise history to fit today’s agenda.

So many of us have considered America immune to attacks on faith. However, according to a 2024 study titled “The Intensifying Intolerance Toward Christians in the West”, which was conducted by the Family Research Council, most religious liberty violations in the Western world in the last few years took place in America.

Are you ready for an attack in places where you feel safe?

Just a few years ago the Christian publishing world was shocked when women attending Christian writers conferences reported years of sexual misconduct and harassment by male faculty members.

I knew such things were happening in churches, but I’d been teaching at these conferences for more than 20 years! And the men on faculty whom I knew––and know––well were above reproach.

However, I became more attentive––and reported the few instances I saw.

More and more, both in the world and in Christian communities, we see the ideals and truths on which America was founded being twisted and ignored. The same for biblical truth. And anyone who resists the twisting can count on an attack.

Wrong is called right, truth is called lies, faith is called racism or worse. So what does all this mean for you and me today, in this very moment? Several things.

Jesus told us many times that, in this world, we would see trouble (John 16:33) and that the world will hate us (John 15:18-19). In 1 Timothy 3:12, Paul wrote, “Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”=

2 Timothy 3:1-5 tells us: “You should know … that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control.

“They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!”

David Mathis, of DesiringGod.org, says, “[As] New as the recent trend of shameless spin, and outright lies, may seem to some, Christians with Bibles in hand do not number ourselves among the surprised. Long has the devil trafficked in half-truths, subtle deception, and ‘disinformation’ — from the beginning, in fact.

“This has been his strategy, and main trick, as ‘father of lies,’ from the garden. Even if the social manifestations now appear plainer and, at times, more jarring, those informed by the truth of Christian Scripture take it in stride.

“Two millennia ago, one of our apostles informed us that unbelievers ‘suppress the truth’ and ‘exchanged the truth’ for lies (Romans 1:18, 25).”

Sound familiar? Too much so, in fact. So it’s no surprise, in light of Scripture, that such craziness is happening today.

Scripture also gives us a clear picture of the enemy of our souls. In 1 Peter 5:8 we’re told, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

This comparison to a lion is especially appropriate. An article by Marshall Segal on desiringGod.org shares the following:

“Mountain lions detect vulnerabilities in their prey and attack the weakest — the young, the sick, the injured. Studies have confirmed this instinctive cruelty. It’s how the mountain lion lives, following the scent of suffering and feasting on whatever he finds.

“The enemy of your hope and happiness hunts with that same instinct, with a cold-hearted and ruthless hunger for the weak or hurting…And because he’s clever, he spends a lot of his time among the suffering.

“He lies in wait with lies, wanting to consume the fragile and vulnerable.”

Though we know from Scripture that satan’s fate is already decided (spoiler: he loses), he doesn’t give up trying to attack and destroy us. As Billy Graham wrote, “Satan never gives up and decides to let us alone, because his goal is to draw us away from God — and he always hopes he’ll be able to do this.

“And let’s face it: Sometimes he’s successful. This is why the Apostle Paul warned, ‘If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!’ (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Just as the cougar stalks its prey, watching and waiting to spot any vulnerability, and then STRIKES with speed and vicious force, so the enemy of our souls is there, watching and waiting for any possible way to strike. With a force more vicious than we can imagine.

So what do we do? Well, first, don’t be afraid of the enemy. He’s NOTHING compared to almighty God, who watches over and protects us.

Second, know your vulnerabilities.

And third, submit those vulnerabilities to God the very moment you realize they are there, and seek His help to address them.

Which is exactly what we’ll dig into in our next podcast!

Until then, why not do some study to prepare yourself now for the enemy’s attacks?

As unsettling as it is to realize we are the targets of a supernatural battle, that a being that hates God hates us as well and is actively at work to “devour” us, you do. Not. need. to. be. Afraid. Hollywood and books and so many other sources of information have filled our minds with the terrifying images of satan and his work. And, indeed, the evil he perpetrates against God’s creation and people is horrific.

And yet…God is with us. Who can be against us? God is sheltering us. Who can harm us? God IS. And satan was defeated before he began.

Know, friends, as sure as you know anything, that He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. God has you covered. Never doubt that.

Amen

Over the past ten years or so, we’ve also seen traditional and Christian beliefs attacked with increasing vehemence. Those who find such beliefs offensive spew vitriol and organize to criminalize those they feel have offended them.
Share on X

What is one thing you can do today to be ready for the enemy’s attack?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Special thanks to our June sponsor of the month, June sponsor of the month Kimberley Woodhouse! She’s an award-winning and bestselling author of more than forty books.  Her books have been awarded the Carol Award, Holt Medallion, Reader’s Choice Award, Selah Award, Spur Award, Christian Market Book Award, Golden Scroll Award among others.

A popular speaker/teacher, she’s shared with over 1,000,000 people at more than twenty-five hundred venues across the country. Check out her latest book: Set in Stone available now and we’ll link to it in the show notes!

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 215 – Are You Ready for Attacks? appeared first on Write from the Deep.

Writing is a solitary occupation, and yet God created human beings with a need for fellowship. This is why it’s crucial for writers to seek—and not neglect—community. Don’t miss being blessed—and blessing others—through this God-designed need for relationships.

But first, thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Welcome to the deep! In some of our episodes this year, we’ve talked about various spiritual disciplines, by which we mean practices that help us develop a deeper, closer relationship with God. Here are links to our episodes about Rest-211, Prayer 208, Silence-205, and Solitude 199.

The Christian writing life is hard. Knowing God and trusting God is crucial on this journey. Today we want to focus on a practice that we don’t always think of as a discipline, and that we sometimes might even take for granted or feel like it sort of just goes without saying. What is this practice? It’s Christian fellowship.

Let’s start with what fellowship is. Among Merriam-Webster’s definitions are:

Companionship, company, the state being comradely.

The BibleProject.com defines fellowship as: “shared participation within a community.”

Dalla Willard in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines writes this about fellowship: “In fellowship we engage in common activities of worship, study, prayer, celebration, and service with other disciples.”

Willard categorizes fellowship as a spiritual discipline of engagement. Whereas things like fasting, silence, and solitude are disciplines of abstinence, where we cease doing certain activities for a time, disciplines of engagement, like fellowship, are where we commit to participation, to involvement in activities we are at times likely to neglect. Bible study and prayer are other examples of disciplines of engagement.

So fellowship is something we do, something we participate in, either in a large group of people or just a few.

But why is fellowship important? What is the basis of it?

1. We were made for fellowship.

Justin Whitmel Earley, in his book The Common Rule, has this to say:

“One of the defining marks of the Christian faith is that God is three persons in one triune God. Among the thousands of radical implications of the Trinity, my favorite is that God is a fellowship. This means we are made in the image of fellowship.”

So we’re made for fellowship and in the image of fellowship.

The BibleProject article we mentioned earlier says:

“God enjoys perfect fellowship within himself. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in eternal relationship and always participate in acts of self-giving love toward one another. This fellowship is the essence of heaven.”

Jesus talks about his fellowship with the Father in John 17:5: “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” (NIV)

The BibleProject article goes on to say, “[God] created humans in his image so that we could share in his eternal self-giving fellowship and partner with him to share it with all of creation.”

So again, it seems clear that God designed us for fellowship.

Here’s another great quote from the book The Common Rule that talks about the implications of this:

“We came from friendship. Everything in the universe has its roots in friendship. That means the longing to be in right relationship with other people and things is at the heart of every molecule in existence—and most powerfully in our own hearts. We can’t be happy without knowing and being known, because that’s the image of the trinitarian friendship we were made in.”

The bottom line is that fellowship is necessary for human flourishing.

2. We need connections with other believers to help us with our spiritual formation.

The second reason why we need fellowship is that we need connections with other believers to help us with our spiritual formation. We all know how strong the influence of the world around us is. We’re bombarded with messages that undermine the reality and truth God has revealed to us.

Ben Beasley, one of the pastors at my church, was preaching about this a few weeks ago. I loved how he phrased this. He said, “Our spiritual formation must be stronger than our cultural formation.”

We can’t easily achieve that without connection to other believers.

In Dallas Willard’s book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, he talks about how the gifts God gives to the body of Christ are meant to be reciprocal in nature. They’re spread out among the members. Without fellowship, we wouldn’t get the full experience of God’s gifts for his church. We’d only experience a part of what he wants for us.

1 Peter 4:10 (NIV) says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

Because our gifts are to be used for the common good, our responsibility is to be part of the body so we can both give and receive gifts. This is how we grow and develop in our spiritual formation, and help others do the same.

In fellowship, we also help to sustain each other. Willard says, “The members of the body must be in contact if they are to sustain and be sustained by each other. Christian redemption is not devised to be a solitary thing, though each individual, of course, has a unique and direct relationship with God.”

So in fellowship, we help each other cope, endure, and stand against the world that tries to tear us away from God. We help each other “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” like it says in Philippians 2:12.

3. The amplification of God’s presence and power happens within groups.

The third reason why fellowship is important is that there is an amplification of God’s presence and power found within the body of believers.

Dallas Willard says this in The Spirit of the Disciplines:

“Personalities united can contain more of God and sustain the force of his greater presence much better than scattered individuals. The fire of God kindles higher as the brands are heaped together and each is warmed by the other’s flame.”

Jesus makes a point to say in Matthew 18:19-20 (NIV):

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Of course this doesn’t mean God only listens to prayers from groups, and it doesn’t mean that prayer asked for with impure motives will be granted. The point here is that Jesus does, throughout the whole surrounding passage, emphasize the power and responsibility of the body of believers.

We’ve talked a lot about why we as Christians need fellowship, but what about the specific reasons why fellowship is important to writers?

First, as writers, we’re a creative, artistic group, often introverted. Fellowship with other believers who aren’t writers, and who may have a more linear, logical bent helps to round out our perspective on life. The same is true of our relationships with people who are more extroverted. The gifts found in believers who aren’t writers are still necessary and vital to our spiritual and artistic formation.

Second, as writers we also need fellowship with other writers. We share common experiences other “normals” don’t have. We think about ways our characters can kill people, or the designs of storyworlds vastly different from our own. We have coffee with our characters because they’re like real people to us. Amongst other writers, we find support, understanding, acceptance, and encouragement for our unique bent and gifts in God’s overall design.

Fellowship is important, even vital. But how do we do it? What are some practical ways? Here are some ideas we’ve come up with, and let me say that while we’ll talk about the benefits for you in all these, please remember that what you bring—your gifts and service and participation—is equally vital to others in the opportunities.

Join a prayer group either in person or online where you not only are praying for each other but you get a chance to get to know others, hear their various perspectives and experiences, encourage and support them.

Attend church services to experience a larger group of believers in fellowship as you worship, take communion, pray, and learn from preaching.

Join a worship group, or a worship band. My husband and I moved to Kansas a few years ago, and eventually he started playing in the worship band at church, which has been a wonderful way for him to begin building relationships with people in the church.

Join a Bible study group, again either in person or online. It’s amazing what other people bring to the table in terms of their perspectives and insights. We can’t help but be enriched. And what we have to add matters, too!

Get involved in parachurch organizations like Fellowship of Christian Athletes, InterVaristy Christian Fellowship or The Navigators. When I was in college, my connection to InterVarsity is what led me to Christ and played a huge role in my spiritual formation as a young believer. It also gave me a place to serve, and to grow through my service.

Go on a mission trip. You can not only enjoy fellowship with others in your group, but you’ll also likely have the opportunity to develop cross-cultural relationships and expand your perspective. You’ll also be helping to meet the needs of others.

Participate in celebrations. These might be potlucks, banquets, parties, or all kinds of other possibilities. In our church, there’s a whole special service where they do baptisms. It’s a big day of testimony, encouragement, commitment, and celebration.

Go on a retreat. This might be a marriage retreat, family retreat, writers’ retreat, or a men’s or women’s retreat.

Join an accountability group of some sort. These might be things like Celebrate Recovery, or it might be just a group formed to hold each other accountable for some common spiritual goal. Maybe help with overcoming some specific sin, or maybe encouragement to engage in other spiritual disciplines.

Join a Christian writers’ group either locally or online. For example, check out WordWeavers or American Christian Fiction Writers. My friendships and connections in my local ACFW group have been an incredible blessing. Our group often got together for lunch before our monthly meetings, which was a great way to foster and nurture relationships.

Go to a Christian writing conference. There are always opportunities for fellowship and for engaging with others to begin developing relationships. Many have worship sessions, prayer teams, or group meals you can participate in.

Join (or start) a mastermind group with other Christians. For me, this is one of my favorite forms of fellowship. I’ve been part of a mastermind for quite a few years now. The women in my group are amazing. They all bring their own gifts, perspectives, specialties, knowledge, experiences. We pray for each other, we encourage each other, we help each other. They’ve been a huge blessing.

Invite others to a meal. Maybe you have one meal a week that’s dedicated to fellowship with others. Maybe it’s as simple as inviting folks over for dinner after church. Or meeting at a restaurant. Or hosting visiting missionaries or international students. Maybe you have a regular brunch group or a group from work that does lunch together.

Nurture friendships. We also don’t want to forget fellowship in the form of friendships with others, either one-on-one or friend groups. As Justin Whitmel Earley wrote in his book The Common Rule, we all desire, deep down, to be known. But we also fear it, so it’s not easy.

In true friendship we learn to be vulnerable. We learn to be people who still love each other when all our human messiness is out on the table. We learn to trust, and to be trustworthy, we learn to protect and to protect others. We hold each other accountable. We learn the value of authenticity and the freedom found in it. We tell truth, and we hear truth from others. This is all a vital part of the human experience and God’s design for us, and we need to dedicate ourselves to pursuing it.

Recently my neighborhood was grieving the loss of a man who committed suicide. Neither his friends nor his family had any idea he was in such a desperate state. That makes it twice the tragedy.

It’s important to be intentional in your friendships. Sure, doing fun activities together is great, but it’s also important for conversation to happen. You’ve probably seen people sitting together at a restaurant and everyone is engaged with their phone. That’s not an experience of knowing others and being known. You might even consider “conversation appointments” where you all know the goal is to talk. Maybe you chat at a park while kids are playing, or you meet for coffee, or whatever. The point is that you’re being intentional about conversation and getting to know each other.

Whatever paths you take to engage in fellowship, the most important thing is that you DO it. That you intentionally take steps to make this happen in your life. God designed us for fellowship, for relationship with him and with others because he knows that this is how we work better. This is how we flourish even in the midst of a broken world. Our friends, our fellow believers, are anchors for us in the midst of the trials and storms. Don’t miss this spiritual discipline. It will make your life so much better!

The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley

(Just as a reminder, we use affiliate links for the books we mention. Using one of our links, if you choose to purchase a book, is a wonderful way to help us out, because we’ll get a small commission.)

Writing is a solitary occupation, and yet God created human beings with a need for fellowship. Don’t miss being blessed—and blessing others—through our God-designed need for relationships. #amwriting #christianwriter
Share on X

What are your favorite ways to engage in fellowship?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible!

Special thanks to our May sponsor of the month, Priscilla Sharrow! She’s working on her memoir called Bonked! Life, Love, and Laughter with Traumatic Brain Injury, which will release with Redemption Press. Learn more about Priscilla at her website priscillasharrow.com and follow her blog for the TBI/PTSD community.

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 214 – Why Writers Need Fellowship appeared first on Write from the Deep.

The Bible tells us to be holy, and that without holiness we won’t see God. But what part does holiness play in the face of utter devastation? And how do we write through it? Guest Karen Stiller shares wisdom and encouragement from her difficult journey through grief and pain.

About Karen Stiller

Karen Stiller is an award-winning writer, a senior editor, and host of the Faith Today podcast. She’s written about being a pastor’s wife, and her newest book, Holiness Here, offers practical and inspiring ways to transform your life by helping you see the holiness within your ordinary, everyday life. You can find out more about her at Karenstiller.com. 

Thanks to our sponsors on Patreon, we’re able to offer an edited transcript of the podcast!

Erin: Welcome, listeners. We’re glad that you’re here in the deep with us. Today we’re continuing our conversation with Karen Stiller.

Now, Karen, you did mention grief. Let’s go there, because you had said before, when we were doing some emails, that you had to complete this book during a season of grief. First, how in the world did you do that? How did that affect you and the book? 

Karen Stiller: Yeah, I’ve been thinking so much about that because sometimes I think, over the last year and a bit, I think, I don’t know how I did it either, sometimes. And yet I do.

My husband had a kidney transplant, which should, for most people, be routine. You know, it changes your life, but it’s not a thing that will kill you. But that did happen with my husband.

My husband experienced a very severe and rare side effect of post-transplant lymphoma. He went into the hospital in the end of November, and he was dead by mid-January. He never came home again.

Karen Ball: Oh my gosh.

Karen Stiller: Yeah, it was very unexpected. The way he experienced lymphoma was on his brain, so it was a rocky path. As anybody who has loved anyone into heaven with brain cancer, it’s…well, I guess it’s probably different for lots of people…but it was hard. Very hard.

Karen Ball: Yeah.

Karen Stiller: I had written up till then. When I signed my book contract, I immediately set up a writing schedule. I signed in July, and I was going to do three chapters by the end of July, two by the end of August. One by the end of September, October, November, and December.

The book was due in January and I had built in time for revision. I felt really confident. I’m a big list person. I make lists and I make schedules, and that’s the way I get things done. I love a deadline.

When Brent went into the hospital, I think I was around chapter eight. I just obviously set the book aside. After he died, you know, actually there was a time where I thought, “I’m never gonna write again.”

I just couldn’t imagine…I couldn’t imagine a way forward in many things. But I also thought, “How will I ever find the desire or ability to write again?”

My agent knocked on my door at some point. The timelines are a bit off for me. It’s all a big blur in some ways, but she basically said, “If you can finish the book by a certain date, we can get back on the same timeline. Editing will be shortened. But there’s no pressure.”

My publisher was amazing and said they’d take the book whenever. They were, of course, wonderful during that season. They had sent a bouquet of flowers once, and I remember that theirs was the only one I carried upstairs to my bedroom. I think now that those flowers were like a symbol of hope for me. There is a little dot of light off in the distance if I can keep that alive.

I was off my day job as an editor and podcast stuff and all that for about three months. I just slowly picked up the book again and thought, “Can I?”

I dipped my toes in, and what I found was that writing a few mornings a week gave me a shape to the sort of endless days and weeks I was in.

It kind of woke me up a little bit, and it gave me a sense of purpose, which I had lost, and it changed the book. I would be interested to hear from listeners who maybe made, or would’ve made a different choice, or have thoughts on this, or have gone through this. But my husband was very much part of my writing, obviously in The Minister’s Wife, but again, in Holiness Here.

My husband was very much part of my formation as a follower of Christ. I’d quote him throughout the book, or I’d tell a little story about something that happened in our church that involved him.  All of a sudden he died, and I didn’t know how to handle that as a writer in terms of the actual material.

I talked to a few people and I had in my head—I don’t know if people have heard this writing advice—write from your scars, not your wounds.

Karen Ball: Right.

Karen Stiller: I thought, “Well, I’m bleeding. I am deeply wounded, but yet I can’t not write about this huge thing.”

I felt like it would not have been honest to finish those last chapters without telling some, without sketching out a little bit of what had happened. This has been a big knock for me. I’d love to say that I’ve just been a conqueror in Christ through this, but no. I am pulling apart what it means to trust God and realizing that maybe I did think some things that weren’t true.

I never would’ve thought that, because my husband was a very, “Why me, why not me?” kind of man. He had a very robust, sound theology of suffering, which I thought I believed, too.

Then when he died a very hard death, I just…I just couldn’t believe it.

Karen Ball: Right.

Karen Stiller: I felt like I couldn’t finish this book about holiness honestly without tackling that. I wrote a chapter called “Sorrow,” and I wrote it very carefully because I knew I was writing from my wound.

As a beginning writer who would get an assignment from an editor, I would often write the angle on a post-it note and stick it on my computer wall so that I would stick to my assignment. Now I had a post-it note in my mind where I was like, “Your assignment is holiness. Your assignment is not writing a book about grief. Your assignment is holiness. So where is the holy in this horrible mess?”

I kept my lens tightly in on that, and it was good for me. It was good for me to write that. I offered to show it to all my children. Only my eldest son accepted the invitation. I just wanted their blessing. He thought it was honoring to his dad and to what we had gone through, so that made me feel comfortable, and I trust the editors.

Karen Ball: Mm-Hmm.

Karen Stiller: Where would we be without people telling us hard and wonderful things, right?

Karen Ball: Right.

Karen Stiller: I submitted my work to the process. I also knew that it is a privilege to have a book contract. My husband would’ve kicked my butt if he knew I had let it float away and that I couldn’t finish it.

I knew last year when I was doing this work that this year I would be glad I had done it. There was a discipline there, actually, which we have to have as writers, right? We know that a working writer knows how to work, and that woke me up. That woke me up.

I also thought that if I was a chef, I would be cooking. If I was a painter, I’d be painting. If I was a baker, I’d be baking. I’m a writer, and I’m writing. 

Erin: Wow. Well that was a lot to have to deal with.

Karen Stiller: It was a long answer.

Erin: No, I mean it was a great answer but a lot for you to wade through in trying to deal with that. I think your process was amazing. Just the notion of using holiness as a lens, because writers go through all kinds of things in their lives as they’re trying to write something.

It isn’t always as awful and traumatic as losing a spouse, but if we were able to realize that there is something to be said for just the discipline and the lens and trying to turn this book in even though this, this, and this is happening, because our lives may always be this, this, and this.

It doesn’t mean that we’re not supposed to write, it just means we’re supposed to be learning how to work through that.

Karen Stiller: I think that’s so important.

Erin: I was curious if, after you had been through this experience, when you went back in revisions and in other places in the book, how did your experience through this grief and this theology of suffering, like how did that maybe change other things in the book?

Karen Stiller: Wow, that is a very perceptive question. I did a lot of work. I went back and in every sentence I asked myself, “Do I still believe this, and if I don’t, is this because I’m just in this terrible situation and I will come back to this and I will recover from this?”

I made a lot of phone calls. My husband being a pastor, we had a lot of pastor friends. I probably need to apologize to a bunch of people for all my questions like, “Hi, do you have twenty minutes to talk to me? Okay, tell me why my husband died. Tell me what heaven is like. Tell me what he’s doing right now. Like, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think?”

I did a lot of those kinds of conversations with people to try to sort through my stuff and my pain, and partly so that I could try to understand what was happening, and then have that help me look at the work and say, “Yeah, I can still say this. I can still stand here.”

I think we all have fences in our writing lives, probably, of things that we won’t do, or won’t write about. For me, again, married to a priest, that was very much part of my calling, too. I always had a very simple way kind of guardrail for my life as a pastor’s wife.

It was: Do no harm. Do no harm. I’ll not harm my husband’s work. I will not always say what I want to say. I will do no harm. That probably has seeped into my writing life, too. I would think like if I had just gone full-wound bleeding on the page, it wouldn’t have helped anyone. It certainly wouldn’t have helped the book.

I knew that I was on a journey of hopefully recovery and healing. You know, you always live with grief. I’ve been told that, and I see that that is true. So I just wanted to be really careful, and so I did interrogate the whole book again.

I did make some changes. There are some statements I changed into questions, but that’s the kind of writer I am anyway. I am not an answer giver. I’m a question asker and so I’m pretty comfortable with that. 

Erin: Yeah. What I love is—I know this seems awful—but this was also a gift in terms of how you had to go back and ask yourself those questions.

Karen Stiller: Yeah.

Erin: Not every believer faces that kind of a situation where they’re forced to go back and say, “Do I still believe this? In light of what’s happening in my life, do I still believe this? Do I still believe this?”

I think that is one good thing that came out of that and can come out for other people who are going through these kinds of issues.

Karen Stiller: Yeah. One really big thing I learned…I’d spoken with a spiritual director for writers a couple years ago, and she kind of set me up to think in this way because there was a time, like when I was writing the Minister’s Wife, if I had a little fight with my son in the morning, I’d think, “Oh, there goes my writing day.” Like,”I’m in a bad mood now. I can’t write.”

My spiritual director for writers, she had helped me dig into that a little bit and think about how that kind of compartmentalization cannot help us be writers. Everything does not have to be perfect for me to write. That set me up well for believing, and for the questions we were talking about in the last episode, “Anxiety, what do you have for me? Fear? What are you bringing to the table?”

I had to believe that my grief was then and is now, in there doing something that I will write out of, even if I don’t write about it. I think that’s important for writers.

Karen Ball: It’s a thread. Everything that we’re faced with, everything that we experience, is a thread in the tapestry that God is weaving of our lives. Every single thread adds an element that we may not understand, or see, or appreciate until we see the completed tapestry.

Then we can look at that and say, “Ah. Okay. That’s why that was there, because it needed to be there to compliment this, and to bring this out, and to enhance this, and to clarify things.”

I think when we face these difficult questions, ”Do I still believe this? Is God who he says he is? Is God’s goodness real?” And I’ve heard believers say, “I’m starting to doubt the goodness of God…” I listen to those things, and I think because I don’t have a theological mind, I have a simple mind, a simple faith of trust because I saw such a powerful example of that in both my parents. I was raised with the sure knowledge that God is who he says he is.

But when my husband and I were separated, and I had been emotionally abused and all of those kinds of things, I had to acknowledge that…I’d always thought that when I finally came face to face with God, I would run and leap up into his lap, like a child, just grab him and hug him. One very dark night, I was talking with him and I said, “I don’t think I know you well enough to jump into your lap, and I’m not sure that I trust you well enough to do that, because this was not the cruise I signed on for.”

I’m not at the end of it. Don and I still work through things. We’ve been married for either 45 or 46 years—I’m not a math head. But as I I look at it, I think to myself that I wouldn’t have known God to the depth and the certainty that I know him now, at sixty-six years old, had I not gone through all of that.

All of it, every single thread needed to be there for me to be able to say with absolute certainty that God is who he says he is, and God is good, and all things do work together for our good as followers, because it’s all about him.

It’s not about me. It’s all about him and how I can reflect him. When you’re talking about working toward holiness, that self-examination, that coming to understand ourselves in light of who he is, it’s vital.

Karen Stiller: Yeah. 

Erin: We’re coming to the end of our time here. Do you have any final words of wisdom you want to leave with our listeners?

Karen Stiller: I’m struck, from what you just shared, Karen, about the work of finding meaning and that we can find meaning without getting into causation. For example, I can believe that I will find meaning that will show up in my writing out of what we’ve gone through as a family, and that doesn’t mean that’s why it happened. You know what I mean?

Erin: Right. 

Karen Stiller: The two things do not have to equal, but we will not waste it.

When my husband was dying, and after he died, throughout that time I kept speaking with my children, who are young adults, because Brent could not communicate what he would’ve wanted to communicate. I knew him so well, I knew what he would’ve wanted said, and I said those things.

One of them was that we have to honor what has happened here, this terrible tragedy and pain, by not letting it go to waste. We have to make this mean something, and that hopefully makes us more beautiful people, and more empathetic, and all of those things, and aware of the suffering of the world, and aware that God is with us in that. He is with us.

That is a big faith thing to say.

Karen Ball: Yes.

Karen Stiller: Even that little thing, it sounds so little, but it’s really big. So I guess I would encourage writers, whatever you are going through…you know, we can be like hungry hounds for material, right? Well, you are your greatest material.

It doesn’t mean you have to write about yourself. Of course, we’re not all going to do that. But you can honor what is happening in your life by allowing it to become part of the garden of your writing. I think that’s a beautiful thing that artists do, whatever kind of artists we are.

Writers are artists and makers, which reflects something of God’s creative nature. Don’t build those walls inside yourself. Tear those walls down and see what grows there. I think that can be a beautiful thing. 

Karen Ball: I love the imagery that you mention of it becoming a part of the garden of our lives.

I live in the northern part of Washington state, and right now we’re seeing some blossoms in the garden, but it’s still pretty barren. During the winter with the cold and the snow, it’s easy to believe, to look at it and to think, and I confess, I thought it a few times, “It’ll never be beautiful again.”

A garden has to die in order to come to life. It’s the cycle that God has created. In our own lives, some things have to die before he can bring it to the full, bright, fragrant bloom that he intends for us to be in him. And that he intends us to see him in all that beauty and in all the growth that comes from the death.

Thank you so much for being with us, Karen. You have been a phenomenal blessing, and I pray that God will continue to guide and to touch and be present for you.  

Karen Stiller: Thank you Karen and Erin, and thank you on behalf of writers everywhere who listen to this show and the wonderful guests you bring on and the way you minister. And again, that idea what you said at the beginning that you’re chaplains to writers? Writers need chaplains, so I’m really thankful.

Karen Ball: Thank you.

Guest @karenstiller1 shares wisdom and encouragement from her difficult journey toward holiness through grief and pain. #amwriting #christianwriter
Share on X

Holiness Here: Searching for God in the Ordinary Events of Everyday Life by Karen Stiller

Have you had to write through grief? What helped you move forward?

Thank you to all our patrons on Patreon! You help make this podcast possible! If you want to add your support, visit patreon.com/writefromthedeep.  We’d sure appreciate it!

Special thanks to our May sponsor of the month, Priscilla Sharrow! She’s working on her memoir called Bonked! Life, Love, and Laughter with Traumatic Brain Injury, which will release with Redemption Press. Learn more about Priscilla at her website priscillasharrow.com and follow her blog for the TBI/PTSD community.

Many thanks also to the folks at PodcastPS for their fabulous sound editing!

Want the latest news from Karen and Erin? Click here to join our newsletter and get an exclusive audio download.

The post 213 – Holiness and Grief with Guest Karen Stiller appeared first on Write from the Deep.