Me? A Calling?

     As we drove down the highway through the Rocky Mountains, I prayed.  Lord, are you calling me to write? I admit when I asked this question, I was equally scared of the yes, as I was a no.  I had invested time, energy, and resources for the past two years in a writing career, but sadly I had never asked this question until now. 

     

     The dictionary defines a calling as a summons or a strong impulse. As a Christian writer, a summons from God defines you and your future.  Just ask some people from scriptures that were summoned by God, for example, Moses and Paul.  The summons requires time, sacrifice, and suffering as we lead our readers into a closer relationship with God or a journey towards a changed life.

    

     I knew if God answered yes, it would change me.  Fiction writers can tell you the world of fiction can be very personal.  Our characters face problems we have dealt with too.  They have character flaws that resemble ours or someone we know. Our characters struggle in their relationship with God as they face infertility, loss, or betrayal, just like we do.  Our readers watch God carry our character through crisis after crisis to victory in three hundred pages or less.

     

    God’s yes can help me grow.  As I sat at my favorite writing place, God gave me a different perspective. As I wrote, I saw this verse in a fresh way. What I understood about this scripture was broadened. 

 Proverbs 3:5:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
    he’s the one who will keep you on track.

     

     I have always looked at this verse from my life.  If I didn’t get the job I wanted maybe there was a reason, so trust God.  If the test results didn’t come back the way I wanted them, God has a plan.  So as not to give my story plot away, I will use a recent true example I heard to illustrate my changed perspective. 

     A young girl in high school was killed twenty years ago.  Since her death, her parents visit the killer in jail and attend his parole hearings asking for his release.  I am struck by the way parents who are grieving a loss of a daughter can trust God.  The emotions they must have felt during prison visiting hours when they sat across from him trusting God as they forgave him.  They were unaware of the impact they would have on the young man or on a stranger (me).  They trusted God with what they didn’t know. They listened to God’s prompting to go against their own feelings and follow God’s command to forgive.  The parents put aside their own grief to change a life.  It wasn’t about their future, but someone else’s.

     

     A synonym for calling is mission.  As Christian writers we have an awesome responsibility given by God to play a part in his plan.  He has gifted us with the creativity to write an interesting story.  God has given each of us a writing style and a voice to reach readers who have different learning styles, life experiences, and love languages.  It is our mission to help our readers understand the workings of God through our characters and their struggles.

     In the Rocky Mountains, God said Yes. Whether it’s a book or a blog, only God knows.  But knowing I am called helps me when life gets hard.   When I am writing late at night or early in the morning, sacrificing time with family to meet a deadline, or working extra hours to pay for membership dues or writing conferences.  All of these sacrifices are worth it, because I am called. I must keep my mind on the bigger picture, my end game, the unique vision of my calling.

Jennifer Filka, an Indiana native, graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Elementary Education.  Her dream to become a writer started in fifth grade when she entered her first writing contest.  Jennifer writes women's fiction with the hopes that her stories will draw her readers into a more intimate relationship with God.  Jennifer resides in Carmel with her husband, Jon.