Writing Thought #8

Hey Everyone!

I was doing some work on A Mission Remembered, and realized I didn’t like where the story was going. Things were working more smoothly, but it was lacking something which I can only describe as Excellence. My main character never went through a vital arch that he needed to. This arch is similar to the one he went through in book 1. In addition to this, to get the series plot back on track… lets just say it would have been  unnecessarily complicated.

Also, my beta reader agreed that the story had lost its flare after the point I identified. Though he suggested an earlier part needed to be redone as well, it wasn’t as big an issue as the crossroad I was mulling over.

So I found that the delete key is not always a bad thing. An eraser isn’t something that destroys work. It is more along the lines of something which can make things better. In a way, it is similar to how God tries us. In the mist of the valley, we feel that God is tearing down parts of our personalities that we hold so dear. When our heavenly Father presses that delete key and our little world descends into chaos, we rarely see the better, more perfected story that He is writing. He erases the parts of us which hinders us in our walk with Him. It may be a stretch and clearly a flawed analogy, but since when is anything conjured in the mind of finite man able to completely explain issues of infinite dimensions.

As with the writing of a story, the Author has a grand plot which must be worked out, whether it seems to decimate the character’s world or set them back in their lives. God has a good and glorious Will to be worked out in His creation. Sometimes He refines us in the fire and sometimes he brings us back to the same fire multiple times to teach us the same lesson.

Consider this as you are writing or living. God’s plot for your life is grander than what you have planned, let Him write it.

I hadn’t planned to get theological, but that’s what happened.

Until Next Time, God’s Speed!