In general, the Western world—and many in the church—do not know what to do when confronted with fearsome circumstances or unexpected suffering. We need only to observe the world as it navigates out of a global catastrophe that has torn through churches and communities to see that God’s people haven’t always suffered well amidst the fearsome unknown. Yet our responses have the power to either draw others to the Lord or drive them away. How we represent Christ while we face our fear matters. This is part of the reason I love writing fiction. It’s therapeutic to craft characters who love the Lord and then put them into situations where God stretches and tests their faith. It helps me work through impossible choice scenarios, consider how to rebound after failure, and how to seek the Lord humbly.
Meet Meg Gilmore
Meg Gilmore seeks more than an absence of anxiety, fear, or stress. If that’s all that inner peace required, her twisted insides would have smoothed out when she escaped her abusive ex and resettled in the small town of Sycamore Hill. But the peace she sought didn’t come through removing the source of tension. Meg wants the Lord to remove the root of her fear (like her ex trying to extort her). She wants God to save the ancient tree that’s become her safe space. But neither would guarantee her the kind of peace that remains when the storms rage. She needs a peace that is different from the world’s peace (John 14:27). A peace that doesn’t come through the removal of trials but from enduring the trials with a trust that what the enemy meant for destruction will be the very vehicle God uses to strengthen her soul.
Meet Eli Martin
Eli’s need to control his environment feeds feelings of anxiousness and challenges his theology. Which is true? His chaotic feelings or God’s promise of peace? His flesh whispers that failure is guaranteed, but the Spirit says he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him (Phil 4:13). His flesh pushes people (and God) away, but wisdom says humbly seek the Lord, and God will meet every need (Phil 4:19). His flesh screams there is not enough time, but the Spirit reminds him that there has always been enough time when he keeps the Lord first (Matt 6:33). Yesterday, fear overwhelmed him. Today, he starts again with the Lord and trusts Him for another day. God’s mercies are new every morning. He is faithful (Lam 3:22-23). Eli knows this. Now, he has to live like he believes this.
The Sycamore Standoff
Meg and Eli fight for biblical thinking one day (one hour!) at a time, and they learn to live and focus on each day as it comes, not worrying about tomorrow (Matt 6:34). Peace follows this battle for their minds. It is exhausting but freeing. It feels dangerous yet is safe. It provides no answers, but it causes them to depend on the One who holds the answers, and that is why it brings peace within circumstances that haven’t changed. Meg’s fearsome past still exists. Eli can’t control the present. Yet peace anchors them—to God and each other.
Perfect Peace in the Face of Fear
Managing our circumstances will never bring lasting peace—the darkness and pervasiveness of sin roots far too deep than that. Instead, peace comes with an understanding that God uses suffering to accomplish far more extraordinary things than He would by removing suffering. Like Eli and Meg, I’ve found God in the blessings and provisions of life, but the spectacular sights and rewards that come from the harder work of seeking God in difficulty are even more precious. God has strengthened me to endure and revealed that nothing I fear can limit His hand.
“Why doesn’t God answer my prayer?” Even mature Christians ask this sometimes. The truth is: He does answer. Each and every time. But His answer may be “yes,” “wait,” or even “No. I have something better in mind.”
I’m very grateful for my prayers God answered yes. Prayers for relatives with major health issues. Prayers for direction when making life-changing decisions. Prayers for even minor concerns. Like when I was terrified before having to merge onto a busy highway. “Please, God.” For the first time in my experience, there were no other cars in sight. Not one. How blessed we are to know God is watching all the time. In every situation. No matter how small. If it’s important to one of His children, it’s important to Him.
But with age, I’ve also become grateful for prayers God said “No” to. At the time I was majorly disappointed. But looking back, I can see how His “noes” were for my benefit. God doesn’t think short-term. He has a large chest we can beat our fists against. But, like a good earthly father, He won’t swerve from the best path.
Modern Christians aren’t the only ones God says “no” to. When Elijah prayed for God to take his life, an angel sent food and water. (1 Kings 19:4) Jesus prayed prior to his crucifixion: “Let this cup pass from me.” (Matthew 26:39) We know how that turned out.
The Curious Prayer Life of Muriel Smith
In The Curious Prayer Life of Muriel Smith, Muriel wonders, too, why God doesn’t answer her prayers. All she wants is someone to mow her lawn. Someone cheap. At age 71, she can’t pull the cord on her old lawnmower. And her son-in-law won’t let her withdraw money from her accounts to buy a new one. She taught high school for fifteen years and has nothing to show for it. Her life has been meaningless. Or so she thinks. Then she gets carjacked. But before things look better, they look downright disastrous.
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Carol Raj grew up in Illinois, went to college in Minnesota, and lived with her husband in the beautiful state of New Hampshire for 40 years. To the day! There they raised three children. They now live in another beautiful state: Georgia. This time there’s no snow to shovel! Carol loves to read, but her favorite activity is playing with her seven grandchildren.
Way back in 2001, I wrote an article for Today’s Christian Woman about my experience with secondary infertility, which is the inability to bear another child when you’ve already had at least one biologically. Toward the end of that piece, I noted, “I wish I could say I was totally ‘over it,’ but I know there’ll forever be an ache inside me for the children who might have been.”
Was I ever right.
Here I am in 2022, in my 60s, my solitary child in her 30s, and I still have those pangs.
As authors often do, I also took my experience and fictionalized it, in my historical romance e-novella, The Christmas Child. The main character, Hannah, agonizes over her failure to get pregnant. If you’re familiar with the Biblical prophet Samuel, you’ll recognize that I named her after his mother. Her account is found in 1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2. I related to her deep grief and anguish as I slogged through medical treatments and failed adoption attempts both to initially conceive and then through my second, unsuccessful endeavor.
The actual Hannah finally bore Samuel. I gave birth to my daughter. Unlike me, though, she went on to have five more kids. I won’t give away the conclusion to my fictional Hannah’s story, but here’s a hint: romances usually have a happy ending. So what do I do with my not-as-happy ending?
In those moments when I brood over my lot, I always cast my mind back to the last chapter of John, where the resurrected Son of God appears to two of His disciples. As Jesus talks to them, He alludes to Peter’s eventual martyrdom. Naturally, this is upsetting news. I imagine Peter thinking, Why should I have to suffer by myself? It’s not fair! Looking at his companion John, he blurts out, “What about him?” (v. 21).
Jesus’ reply, spoken twice, brings me up short every time: “What is that to you?” (v. 22, 23).
Because He asks me a similar question: what do women who have more than one child have to do with you?
My only answer is—nothing.
Then He issues a challenge, both to Peter and, by extension, to me: “You follow Me!” (v. 22).
I take great comfort in the assurance that Jesus understands my mourning over my greatest “what if” (Prov. 30:15-16). He sympathizes with me and even shares that burden (Ps. 68:19, Is. 53:4a, 1 Peter 5:7). But He loves me too much to leave me stuck in self-pity. He calls me to live fully and abundantly in “what is,” (Jn. 10:10), fixing my eyes on Him, the author and perfector of my faith (Heb. 12:2).
My real—and forever—happy ending, He gently reminds me, is “what will be,” an eternity with Him, in a place where tears and pain are no more (Rev. 21:4).
I love the way King David sums it up: “You [God] will make known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence [and] with eternal pleasures at Your right hand” (Ps. 16:11).
So what do I do? I hold on tight and keep walking.
“There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, “Enough!”: the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, “Enough!”
Proverbs 30:15-16
A barren couple. A baby who needs a home. A husband adamantly opposed to adoption.
Infertility casts a shadow over Robert and Hannah’s marriage in 1891 New York. So does her newfound faith, a result of Dwight L. Moody’s evangelistic campaign. Their world is further rocked by their immigrant maid’s pregnancy, and by Jacob Riis’ shocking exposé on life in the city’s tenements.
Penny Musco is a freelance writer with publishing credits in AARP, Fodor’s Travel, and AAA publications, among others. She was an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service, and speaks regularly about the national parks at libraries and senior residences. Her first book, Life Lessons from the National Parks: Meeting God in America’s Most Glorious Places, came out in 2016.
Stories fuel me. They take me places I could or would never go to do things I could or would never do. They walk me through valleys I have never been through and lead me up mountains I may never see. They teach me things about others and more importantly, about myself. There is simply something in my DNA that resonates with story.
And over the past few years, I’ve come to understand why.
We, Dear Sisters, are in the midst of an epic story. It’s a tale of love and war, of good and evil, life and death. And sadly, too often we don’t realize it, or if we do, we determine to make the story about us. It’s human nature.
But when we become followers of Jesus Christ, we are given a new nature. It is in this new nature that our eyes are opened to the story God is telling in the world around us. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we’ll be able to discern right from wrong. We’ll learn to recognize the enemy’s attacks almost before they start. We’ll have a supernatural strength that gets us through trials we never thought we could survive.
Most glorious of all, we’ll no longer question our purpose, or if we even have one. When we give our lives to God and accept His sovereignty over everything, we’ll see His hand of providence has been with us, preparing us for this time and this place.
A Far Way to Run
As I wrote my book, A Far Way to Run, I was hit over and over again with the words for such a time as this. A favorite verse of mine, these words come from the book of Esther (Esther 4:14). If you’re not familiar with her story, I encourage you to read it now.
Esther has been forced to live a life she didn’t want and wouldn’t have picked if she’d been given the choice. Orphaned among an exiled people, she was forced to marry a pagan king. She may have lived in a palace with all the royal benefits, but she lived a life of bondage. She couldn’t even approach her husband without fear of being put to death.
And then there came a moment when she had a choice. When we read Esther’s story, we often think her choice was whether to risk her life or to play it safe.
But a deeper consideration reveals that the choice was really about story. Was her life to be about her story—the orphan turned queen—the end? Or was she willing to live her life as a part of God’s eternal story?
She chose well, and today we are still studying her life as an example for ours.
What will you choose?
We, too, are faced with that choice. We can live our lives as though the story is about us. Or we can step into the irreplaceable role God has created for us.
Few of us live an unblemished life. We have regrets over poor choices and past mistakes. We wrap ourselves in shame over things we’ve done or have had done to us. We lose our way in the larger story… if we ever knew it in the first place.
And we did. Our little girl selves knew there was a great and heroic adventure before us, and we were ready to play our part. But the world has told us we are unlovable, unworthy, and unnecessary until we find ourselves stuck in the chapter we’re in. Afraid or unable to turn the page, we soon forget we’re in a story at all.
There was a time when this was my life as well. I felt the weight of depression as I faced a black curtain that hid the future. Though I wanted to believe there was something on the other side of it, I couldn’t see past the curtain. I slipped down a dark hole where it felt as though there was no meaning to my existence. It was a terrible experience, and one I’ve thankfully left in the past.
Writing stories helps me remember I am in a larger story, whether I choose to embrace that fact or not. When I live as though my story—my life—is about me, I live a life with limits, where failures are failures and mistakes can’t be redeemed. But when I live my life as a part of God’s larger story, I live a life where the failures and mistakes can not only be redeemed but used for God’s glory. I may not understand the pain and suffering I’ve experienced, but I can trust that God has used it to prepare me for my such a time as this moment.
We’re all living in a story. The question for each of us is who will our story be about? This is the question my protagonist, Shayne, must wrestle with in A Far Way to Run.
Today may we all consider that question. There is freedom to be enjoyed when we embrace our roles in God’s greater story.
A Far Way to Run is a compelling story about overcoming the past to discover your purpose. This novel chronicles what happens when a woman traumatized by a violent sexual assault must make a life-defining choice to continue hiding, or stand up in the face of evil to save a stranger.
Possible Triggers: Sexual Assault, PTSD, Sex Trafficking
Multi-published author Lori Altebaumer describes herself as a wandering soul with a home-keeping heart. Her tag line of head in the clouds, boots on the ground, and heart in His hands isn’t just a catchy phrase, but sums up the way she lives her life. Lori has enjoyed both traditional and independent publishing. Her debut novel, A Firm Place to Stand, has been recognized as 2020 AWSA Golden Scrolls Awards winner as well as being selected as a finalist for multiple Selah Awards and the BRMCWC Director’s Choice Awards in 2021. Her work has been included in multiple compilations including Arise to Peace published by Right to the Heart and The Power to Make a Difference published by Lighthouse Bible Studies. Lori enjoys engaging with all facets of the writing industry and people who are passionate about the craft of writing. A life-long Texas, she loves her Southern roots, things that make her laugh, and the company of family and friends.
In Meet Me on the Porch, the main character is heartsick and broken over a bad choice from her past. She knows she’s been forgiven, but her actions have long-lasting consequences, and she still has deep feelings of unworthiness. When she finds a safe haven, she prays for peace, and understanding of where she went astray. She desperately desires to be used by God but needs to accept His mercy and most of all, forgive herself.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? But there is HOPE in God’s promise in Isaiah 1:18: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Since 2014, Erin Stevenson has been writing faith-based romance novels for Pelican Book Group and Winged Publications. She is a member of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), where she has served as a judge and was a 2021 Carol Award finalist.
Grounding her novels in reality, Erin crafts characters who encounter events and hardships familiar to all of us. Her inspirational writing will take the reader down paths of both joy and pain, but always highlighting God’s faithfulness.
