Today, there is a new blog post up at www.booksbyjoy.com. Can you really touch the WORLD with your poetry?
Tuesday, on this blog, I’ll have a guest post by author, Karen Baney on friendship.
Just wanted you to know,
Joy
Today, I’m sharing this blog space with my friend, Staci Stallings.
Ambivalence
Recently two friends of mine asked the question: “So which is it, is God in control and therefore we’re predestined, or is it all up to us and God’s not in control?” One said, “I’m ambivalent here sometimes I think one way, sometimes the other.”
Here was my reply:
Not to jump in over my head here, (but I do that a lot so get ready). Here’s what I’ve learned about whether God has total control or not as in… “What if someone does something that hurts you… was that God’s will or not?”
I’ve come to understand that ultimately it really doesn’t matter. The answer is always the same. This is an opportunity to LOVE. Let’s say that you, because of bad choices in the past, come upon a situation where it looks expedient to steal, and let’s say that it’s not even a little steal. It’s a BIG one. Now you have two choices (and they ARE YOUR choices–God will not make them FOR you unless you GIVE Him the choice to make). Do you steal, or don’t you? (Do you love and not steal, or do you steal because your fear drives you to? Do you act out of love or do you act out of fear?)
Let’s say you just see no other way, and you take it. Well, you take it AND the consequences that go with it–meaning that when you make that choice, you have chosen a path that will bring MORE of those same choices up to you–stealing becomes an option in your life. BUT EVERY SINGLE TIME, you still have the CHOICE to chose love over fear THIS TIME.
The moment you make that choice and choose love OVER fear, your life heads in a new direction. It is not a permanent direction until you make the choice that choosing fear in that realm is no longer an option for you. (A MUCH easier choice to make when you have never opened that being an option in the first place.)
God keeps presenting that choice out of His love for you, so that you will get it right. But you can get it right on your own power and still be missing what He ultimately wants you to get–to rely on HIM in every single situation.
I think ultimately every choice comes down to those two things–choose love and let God help you do it. When you do that, the issue of what happens when someone hurts you is no longer an issue. It’s the SAME choice as the stealing or not stealing. Do you choose love in this situation or do you choose fear? If you choose love (even if/especially if it takes surrendering to God’s strength to do it), you open your life a little further to what God can do in your life, and you understand a little better. When you choose to get angry or to not forgive, you turn a little from God, from His power, and His love in YOUR life.
I was telling a fried of mine the other day that I read a book I highly recommend called “Positive Addiction.” It is written by a psychiatrist who is not at all religious. At the beginning, he was talking about weak people versus strong people, and he used what he considered to be the ultimate example of a weak people–those who commit suicide. Now some of you know my brother committed suicide last year, so reading this was very difficult. But the difficulty came because of a dissonance in my soul over the term “weak.” You see my brother was one of the strongest people I ever knew. In fact, that was one of the big problems. He was so strong, he could not ask for help. He didn’t want anyone to “have to help him.” He believed he had let God down, and it was up to him to make God happy with him again. This was not a weak problem, it was a false strength problem.
I, on the other hand, had recently embraced my weakness (the most freeing thing I ever did). Man, I know I don’t have all the answers! I know there are many situations that I come up against that I’m not equal to AT ALL. But what I’ve learned is that I don’t have to be strong. What I have to be is surrendered. Surrendered to the fact that God loves me even when I make a bad choice. Surrendered to the deep understanding that I can’t, but He can. Surrendered to the fact that when I try to do things, I mess them up, but when I let Him do them, miracles happen. That’s not me. It’s Him.
I think every choice then–whether it’s stealing or not being able to forgive or being too scared to love or whatever–comes down to this: 1) Are you willing to give it over to God Who knows implicitly how to put the pieces of your life together? 2) Or are you determined to choose fear either by insisting on doing it yourself or by making a choice not in keeping with God’s will and love? (Either one will get you into trouble, although I guarantee, that choice is going to keep coming back around so you have another shot at it.)
So, see, it’s not an either/or proposition as Satan would have you believe so that he can trap you one way or the other. There truly is another option–a God option–a perfect blend of the two. When you take that option, it will open your heart and your life in ways you can never really imagine or even understand–but it is the coolest ride you will EVER go on!
Copyright Staci Stallings, 2008
Want to change your life or read stories of people who have? Check out Staci Stallings’s full line of novels and Bible Studies at http://stacistallings.wordpress.com If you have a Kindle or a Nook, you’re in luck because Staci now has eleven full-length novels on both services to choose from. See what God can do in a life!
This is a question authors get hear all the time. Today my guest blogger, Naty Matos, shares her answer. Welcome Naty!
I like to show the lighter side of life. I remember the pastor at a church I used to attend who said that if the joy of life was taken out of you by your dirty floors, start looking at the ceiling. I’m sure that he didn’t mean that we should live in filth, but at the end of the day spending twenty extra minutes with your family it’s more important than vacuuming the floor right this minute. And, that it’s easier to turn on some music and sing like a lunatic in traffic instead of having a stroke trying to yell at the car next to yours. I promise you the traffic will not move any faster, and you will do better without a stroke.
God created us for a purpose, and I don’t think we do enough to pursue that purpose, not understanding that when we tap into it, life feels so right. We believe we’re unequipped to do anything for others. I know; I have felt that way, and then I have to realize that I don’t equip myself, He does it for me. There’s so much that we can do, and we don’t realize it, something as simple as a smile to that knucklehead co-worker that is always grunting, trust me, give it time and prayer. He or she will change. Besides it must be very miserable to have an ulcer from being angry all the time. These are some of the things I highlight on my book Growth Lessons, including how the Word of God supports these principles.
On the fiction side of my writing, I like to write about life tragedies. With that I’m not saying that tragedy is fun or needs to be glorified, but it’s a reality of our lives. In the midst of the pain brought by our misfortunes many stay stuck and miss the opportunities that each life experience brings. Getting past the pain is not easy, but very possible. There’s not a single human being who cannot overcome something, but they need the right tools and the desire to do so.
Having had a share of difficulties in my life and seeing how God was there every step of the way, I can’t do anything but share that there’s hope and light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how bad it looks now. My fictional stories are filled with raw emotions, some graphic situations that are very real in our society: sexual abuse, domestic violence, divorce, losses, addictions, but with the hope that there is always a way out to a better life. Am I an eternal optimist? Not in the any sense of the word. But I’ve had the opportunity to see with my own eyes lives being transformed by the touch of the Lord, and it would be so selfish of me to hold that in and not share it.
For example, my next book, “The Door Home” which will be released in the spring of 2012, is the story of a woman looking for love in all the wrong places and suffering the consequences from her decisions. After overcoming several life obstacles with the help of her best friend, she finally finds the true love of her life, but she can’t be with him just yet. She needs to figure out a personal dilemma to be able to be with her lover forever. The door home is the journey, she endures to open that door that will take her home to her beloved.
I share with people from all walks of life whose pain has kept them from receiving the love of God, and it grieves my heart. Through my writing, I think I can show that even in those dark places, there’s a ray of sunshine that was designed specifically for them. I certainly don’t have all the answers; I can only share what has worked for me and I can also show them the way to the one who does have all the answers.
Join Naty Matos and 9 of her author friends at Women’s Literary Cafe’s Christian Book Launch, December 13-15. Ten authors will discount their eBooks to just 99 cents. Buy 3 get 1 FREE!
http://www.womensliterarycafe.com/content/december-2011-book-launches
About Naty Matos
Naty Matos was born in the city ofNew York, from Puerto Rican descendant parents. She grew up in the beautifulIslandofPuerto Ricoand now lives in the city ofAtlanta.
She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Clinical Psychology with a Minor in Mass Media Communications and a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling.
Naty writes Christian fiction and non-fiction. She’s the author of the live changing devotional Growth Lessons. She maintains a blog on Christian Living Topics at www.therisingmuse.com
Growth Lessons on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Lessons-ebook/dp/B005WZ1BGK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321557564&sr=8-1
Naty Matos on Twitter @natycmatos
Naty Matos on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Naty-Matos/172298772847562
To order Naty’s book via amazon, click on the cover.
I am delighted to welcome my friend, Staci Stallings, back. If you’re looking for a new book to read, I invite you to consider Staci’s new release, Cowboy.
The Life of a Cowboy
by Staci Stallings
One of the most interesting things I’ve witnessed as an author is that not only does each story have an internal story–what it’s about, who the characters are, what happens, but each story also has its own “life story.” The story of how it came to be and its journey in this world after it’s written.
Some stories are written and for whatever reason never leave my computer. Others have a life outside in the “real world.” Sometimes they get written about on blogs or reviewed. Sometimes they are brought to booksignings or produced as blog books or sold as ebooks.
They are all different books and they each, kind of like children, have their own lives that are not within my ability to control or sometimes even determine.
One of the stories that has traveled with me lo these many roads is called, “Cowboy.” This story was the fifth full-length novel I finished. I wrote The End on the last page in 1998. What I didn’t know then was that was just the beginning for this book.
The story is simple enough: heartbroken singer-songwriter superstar meets struggling waitress who doesn’t know who he is but only wants to help.
To be honest, I love this story. I really do. The message is so great–be kind, help each other out, and everybody needs a helping hand no matter how “successful” they might seem to be on the outside.
Weird things began happening with this book almost from its inception. In early 2000, I had printed a full copy of it and put it into a notebook. One night, although we hardly ever do such a thing, my husband took me to a local concert by a very well-known country music star. As I sat in the audience that night, it suddenly occurred to me that this was Ashton Raines, the hero of my book!
The white cowboy hat. The wranglers. The crowd. The venue. It all fit. I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was literally trying to tell me something. That night after we got home, at about two in the morning, I woke up and started thinking about how weird it was that I had now seen “Ashton Raines” in concert. I started thinking about the book and decided to get up and read a little of the story. As I read, I literally got goosebumps at how close the two concerts had been.
Then I heard it… raindrops. That means nothing to you but I about freaked out. I looked at the clock and it was exactly the time in the book that Ashton had driven through the rain that night after his concert! Weird, right?
A few years later I got the opportunity to make that drive through those mountains that he made and the weirdest thing was how close it was to the drive I had pictured in my head. There was only one slight difference and I got to fix it in the book before it went into print.
What I didn’t count on after it was released was how deeply this story would touch others or how far it would go. I put it out in print in 2004. It was my third in-print novel and the first by my new company, Spirit Light Publishing. The first comment I remember having about it was that I had grown so much as a writer from my first one published (weird because the first one was actually the sixth I had written–after I wrote Cowboy! But it had been edited to death on the way to readers’ bookshelves so…).
Then the stories of this book started coming in… I remember the mom who came up and said she was blown away by how I knew what to write in that book. In a hurry at the time, I didn’t grasp what she was telling me until later. She had lost her own husband to cancer–the very thing Ashton deals so poignantly with in the book.
In late 2006 I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to write the screenplay for Cowboy and enter it into the Kairos Prize Script Contest. The day I mailed it off, we were going to the post office and I noticed a bus traveling just behind me on the Interstate. That was strange because the closer it got, the more I knew… it was a tour bus! The same kind Ashton rode around in during the book. It had to be a sign, right?
Cowboy finished among the top 34 semifinalists out of over 500 scripts, and I thought maybe that was it for this book. But I’m learning what we think of as the end is always just the beginning with God. In 2011, I was given the opportunity to launch into eBooks, and upon the advice of someone who had already traveled that road, I chose what I considered to be the book that most represented me as an author. The book that would be the leader for my publishing company and me in this new venue. The book that would introduce my writing to audiences I’d never before dreamed about reaching.
That book was “Cowboy.”
So now as Ashton and Beth ride off into the hearts of a whole new “generation” of readers, I wonder where Cowboy will go next because I’m pretty sure this isn’t the end for this book. In fact, it’s probably just the beginning.
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Thank you, Staci – for all you do for your readers and other writers.
Joy
I’d like you to meet my new friend, Sarah Witenhafer. I think you’ll enjoy her guest post. Thanks for sharing your heart with us, Sarah.
Don’t you love it when there’s a great twist at the end of the story that changes everything? That’s what happened to me as I researched the book of Genesis for a novel I’m writing. Overnight I felt as though I were reading a whole new story as I began reading with the eyes of the original audience – the newly freed and dispossessed Israelites.
Until this year I had dissected Genesis with our modern arguments in mind. As if. How many times has “modern man” made declarations about the universe only to discover they were wrong?
The world is flat.
The sun revolves around the Earth.
Nothing is faster than the speed of light. (In case you missed the most important discovery of our time – Einstein’s theory of relativity is being challenged.)
Theories change. Isn’t it cool that God let us figure these things out over time? That He didn’t come in and explain all the stuff at once.
He focused on the big things. The things His original audience needed to hear.
Genesis was written to a people leaving the only home they had ever known to follow an unknown God. They weren’t asking if there was a god, or how the earth was created. They wanted to know who was in charge, and where the nearest fast food was going to be found in the middle of a barren waste land.
Remember they had lived with the Egyptians for over 400 years. They knew more about Egyptian gods than they knew about the God they were following. They probably believed that the universe was a volatile place filled with warring gods and demons lurking outside temple realms.
The gods were not there to care for man. Man was there to care for the gods.
The gods didn’t provide food, they expected to be fed.
Not only was man expected to feed them, but he was to maintain order so the gods could concentrate their energy on sustaining the universe.
And oh, by the way, the gods had limited powers, they were region specific. So the further you stepped away from their cities – well… it just wasn’t good.
God inspired Moses to write Genesis in a way that would most effectively address these fears. God created everything. Alone. There wasn’t a counsel of gods whose approval He had to win.
He simply spoke. And it was so.
He didn’t mate with another god. He didn’t kill another god, or steal powers. This God was honorable in His conduct.
But the differences didn’t stop there. After creating the functions of nature, God looked and saw It was good. Seven times He repeats that phrase, It was good ending with It was very good. The earth functioned as it was meant to, nothing was out of God’s control.
But the real kicker was afterward He rested! He didn’t need man to create His rest. He didn’t need man to complete His work. He wasn’t looking to man to sustain the earth. Don’t you think this is a message we still need to hear?
Genesis tells of a garden, not unlike the gardens the Israelites were familiar with in other creation stories, with a significant twist.
God’s garden was a place where man could be fed, not a place for man to grow food for God. Again, God’s in control, God’s the provider.
The whole point of the garden is God desires to be known and communicate to man. Other ancient gods had no desire to be personally known; they wanted to be served.
Imagine the comfort a caring, all-powerful God would have been to an Israelite facing a brutal desert. Don’t you still need to hear that about God?
Throughout Genesis 1 and 2, God uses motifs ancient man would have been familiar with, all the while flipping the stories on their heads in order to reveal the truth of who He was.
Genesis shows God speaks in our language – often through stories.
And just like with the Israelites, His greatest desire is to set us free and lead us through the barren places.
Just wait until you hear what He did at the Tower of Babel. But that’s my third book. You’ll enjoy it more if you start with Tamed. *author smiles knowingly*
If you liked this article, please visit my website, SarahWitenhafer.com, where you can read Abraham Through New Eyes. I’d also love to connect with you on Facebook or Twitter.
Sarah Witenhafer writes historical, fantasy, Christian, romance because that’s what her three daughters like to read. She is the author of two books, Tamed and Anointed, and is married to a very patient guy named Dale.
This article is copyrighted and owned by Sarah Witenhafer (the author provided the graphics)
This is a very interesting question. I write both fiction and non-fiction. For the non-fiction side, I like to write about the reality of life. I think as human beings we spend too much time worried about the wrong things and wasting life that could be used in what really matters. Guilty as charged, I used to be a repeated offender and still every now and again I have relapses. A society filled with addictions, and compulsions tells me that we take each other too serious or not serious enough.