Writing Us Home

Because it was never about just finishing the novel

Some stories are harder to write than others. Some truths are harder to face. In this reflection, I share what it feels like to write through grief, shame, and hope—through the characters of Not According to Plan (working title).

“Can you see that spider web, Pizzy?” Wren traces the threads connecting the branches of a small tree with her finger. “See its delicate strength? How it holds on against the wind?” She turns to her old dog seated beside her and strokes her velvet ears. “See how it shimmers in the sunlight and disappears in shade? We’re like that web. We need light to see and be seen—or we vanish in the shadows.” (Chapter 76)

Do you think it’s true that the best things are achieved only by the most difficult paths?

I write today to face the situation before me—finishing what I began — realizing the hardest things aren’t what the world can see, but what lies within a soul, hidden from everyone but God.

“It’s in that secret place you experience a little trial that you would never dare to mention to anyone else, and that is more difficult for you to bear than martyrdom.” (L. B. Cowman writes in Streams in the Desert. She discovered a fountain that sustained her and shared it with the world.)

It’s a hard thing being a writer committed to the truth, to Truth, while sustaining hope in hard places.

That’s been my struggle through the hardest chapters of the novel (72–85). Yes, still working on that. You can’t rush the conclusion any more than you can rush Jesus’ return. Patience. Determination. A writer perseveres without seeing the finish line.

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The truth is, I have to go where I don’t want to go in order to find what is hidden that must be uncovered to complete the journey—finish the manuscript.

“Beloved, your crown lies there. May God help you to overcome and wear it.” (Streams).

Slowly, the words begin to blossom on the pages. “I was there,” I hear Him say.

The Spirit “writes” to bind up the brokenhearted, to free captives, release prisoners, give favor, comfort, provide for the grieving — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.

In the morning’s light, before coffee, thoughts escalate. Snow covers the ground, the sheets are in the wash, and I wonder: do I dare compare the far reaches of the heavens to the untouched depths of a human soul?

Yes. We all must pass through darkness to reach the light.

What is unseeable, yet unreachable?

Neither weight nor size bear witness.

Yet these heights and depths do.

How so?

Let’s ask the Sun — or call on the Moon, whose very business is to give light. Or think on angels, who travel the galaxies, needing neither birth nor death to exist.

“If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing,” Jesus said. (John 8:54).

“The story is complex,” Ken Burns said about his new documentary The American Revolution.

Yes, both are right and true.

Sometimes art, life, and faith force us to revisit what we thought we already knew about ourselves, our families, our countries, and the nations that formed us. To portray the complexities, we must piece together how the history we think we knew actually unfolded to bring about redemption. That can take a long time. Especially if the narrative spans decades. Especially, if you haven’t thought about it in decades.

Maybe it was all packed away with your school artwork and never revisited. Maybe it’s your job to unpack it — to confront the complexities and difficult truths hidden in those stored boxes.

Will complex people relate to sanitized, simplistic versions of a life ultimately well-lived?

How do we tell the real story without shaming or excusing behavior?

How did it all happen?

The answer may be simple — but the journey never is.

Facing the homestretch, the heat intensifies. The only way to the end, like Daniel in the flames, is knowing — in the deepest place — that we are not alone. Someone is there with us, guiding, protecting, not condemning.

We learn to trust we’re right where we need to be, doing what we are meant to do.

As I face the homestretch of this novel, the heat intensifies. I don’t want to go deeper. I want to avoid the very chapters that will bring my protagonist, Wren, home. I’m pointed toward the depths, the heat, the heights. Each word becomes an offering — imperfect but sincere — revealing what grace has cleansed and restored.

I cannot edit mercy out of these pages to make me or anyone else more comfortable.

The Bible didn’t.

Jesus went to the cross for that.

The story is not about the family’s shame. It’s about their redemption. I’m not writing against them — I’m writing for the wounded. I’m not exposing people — I’m exposing patterns that wounded all of them.

And I’m not making excuses for sin, but showing what sin does: how it wounds, destroys, lies, condemns, and holds them captive — and how God draws them toward healing anyway.

I am not glorifying or dishonoring their past with the artifacts from their attic — the memories, the missing pieces, the broken pieces. I am trying to glorify the God who led these characters out of it all.

It was in studying Jesus’ healing of the blind man recently that my eyes were opened. I was forced to look at how God has worked through the characters’ weakness for His glory. Those weaknesses are what He wants to use. Sometimes it’s hard to see weaknesses from others’ perspective.

The mother worried she passed people pleasing, perfectionism, and low self-esteem on to her daughters.

They have to travel back in order to understand — so they can move forward with healing and grace.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus said. “But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3).

But what happened that blinded them from the love and acceptance that had been there all along?

What made Wren so skilled at people-pleasing and perfectionism that it robbed her of self-confidence, peace, and joy—that led her to believe she had to prove herself worthy and gave her a distorted vision of love?

Love tells the truth not to wound, but to heal — to be filled and made complete with the Presence of God, and to know the power available to us through the mystery of His love.

Typing the story, pushing through these chapters, light finally begins to pour in with the truth I feared would be misunderstood, and the tears don’t stop. Kleenex crumpled, chest heaving — grief and relief tangled together in one holy, messy release. These tears become a holy wetness, an offering to the One who has already wept.

We can’t be afraid to strike the match that will light the flame that refines and purifies.

My eyes have been opened. I can see the finish line.

I am writing us home.

“What should we do today?” Todd asks.

Whatever it is, may we do it with the One who’s been shaping us all along…who prepares our good work before we ever see it coming.

The day opens like a gift.

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This piece was previously published in Creative Wisconsin literary magazine.

Feature artist: Photographer and abstract artist Jr Korpa, whose work continually captures and inspires my imagination. He is based in Malaga Spain.