For a Christian, writing novels is like teaching Sunday school—the writer or teacher always learns more than the reader or student.
What I learned while writing my latest novel is that in order to fully enjoy the plans God has for us, we need to first go through a sort of funeral.
I can hear the gasps. Please let’s not talk about funerals. Let’s talk weddings instead, which are so much nicer. Here in the west our brides wear white, while in the east they wear other colors to show their joy, usually red. The color white in eastern cultures is for wearing to funerals.
Yet, people around the globe want the same thing—to experience the joy which weddings bring.
As a Christian, I’m looking forward to when Christ calls His followers home and we have that grand wedding celebration when the Son of God claims His bride, the church.
But in order to fully enjoy that wedding we need a funeral first.
Oswald Chambers in the devotional book My Utmost for His Highest explains that as Christians we must have a sort of funeral for our life, our ambitions, our plans. We must wear the metaphoric white funeral garments. Once our life is dead and buried, we can allow Christ to live His life through us. But can we trust God to give us joy when we give up our dreams, and say “Thy Will be Done?”
What if He asks me to give up the work that I really love, like my writing career, and do something else? Gasp, what if He wants to send me to the mission field or a life of singleness?
What I’ve been learning—and sometimes the hard way—is that we can trust God’s plans. He will use our lives for His glory in more marvelous ways than anything we could ever devise. Even if it hurts for a while. Even if we have to put our preferred work on the shelf to obey the Lord’s schedule for our day.
You might be surprised after your funeral what God will do in your life. You may find to your surprise that dying to your dreams may eventually become a dream-come-true.
Romans 6:4 “Buried with Him…that…even so we also should walk in newness of live.”
~*~
Christine Lindsay writes historical inspirational novels with strong love stories, but she doesn’t classify them as straight romances. Nor does she shy away from difficult topics such as spousal abuse in her debut novel, Shadowed in Silk, or the sex trade in Southeast Asia in Captured by Moonlight. Christine takes pride in her Irish roots. Her great grandfather and grandfather worked as riveters in the Belfast shipyard. One of the ships her ancestors helped build was the Titanic. On her mother’s side it was stories of ancestors who served in the British Cavalry in India that seeded Christine’s long-time fascination with the British Raj and became the stimulus for her Twilight of the British Raj series. The Pacific coast of Canada, about 200 miles north of Seattle, is Christine’s home where she lives with her husband, David, and they enjoy the visits from their adult children and grandchildren.
To keep updated on Christine, check her website: ChristineLindsay.com
