If your days have been anything like mine, then you’ve probably found yourself bobbing between figuring out how to get groceries and everyday living essentials in the house while keeping COVID-19 out, how to help your kids follow their schools’ new virtual programs while trying to meet the demands of work that help fund the whole operation, and praying and watching the news for updates while grieving your own losses and empathizing with others’. It’s a lot.
But I am stopping by to say this: going through this and coming out of it, people will still need to know God cares, He hears and loves them, He has a hopeful future planned for them, that He still heals and restores and comforts, that He turns what was meant to be bad and makes it good. All things work together for good. You will need to know this too—and maintain the faith behind this knowing while living each moment day by day.
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You may only write for yourself during this time just to process through it all, or you may find yourself writing something to share with others on your blog or social media pages, or in a book to be published at a later date. Whether for yourself or others, this is your continuing work as a writer of faith, as a scribe.
However, when you share in the pain and emotional burdens of others, it can be hard to write. I have to admit that especially in the writing work I do for others, it has been enormously difficult to keep up. But I challenge you with this:
Some of our most enduring writing is birthed out of the hardest times in our human experience.
Consider...
Slave narratives
One of the most challenging times in our human experience was the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Some of the most enduring writing—works that shaped a whole new genre in the American literary canon—were written by the very enslaved men and women in what we call slave narratives. We read, and study, and draw from these pieces. They bring us hope and encouragement in some of the darkest times. Though hard to read, they deliver messages of liberation, justice, equality, and what it means to be imago dei. And they were writing under such physical, spiritual, and emotional duress—surviving and succumbing to things some of our modern and developed-world minds can’t comprehend. Used in the abolitionist movement in the fight to end American chattel slavery, slave narratives became their own genre with Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs writing some of the more popular works.
Holocaust writings
Another time in history I think about when people wrote life-changing, timeless works was the Holocaust. Some amazing writing with amazing lessons on living, forgiveness, endurance, holding on to love, empathy, faith, hope in mankind comes from the writings of Holocaust survivors and victims. I’m thinking of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, who was thirteen when her family went into hiding. For two years they went undiscovered as they live in this very small space in the attic of an old office building. Her writing even at the age of thirteen has changed our lives forever.
Another one: A Man's Search for Meaning, by psychiatrist and professor Viktor Frankl. Through the unspeakable horrors he endured in the concentration camps came his upending theory that says that if we can grasp a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning, we can endure anything. A search for meaning is our primary motivation for living. From his writing, we have learned some amazing lessons on getting the right perspective in the hardest of times and understanding what suffering can mean for an enriched life. He took his horrific experiences and mined them for meaning and then delivered it generously to us. If you are not familiar with Dr. Frankl, I encourage you to check him out. Some of the things he wrote about forgiveness, especially, are completely astounding in the most painfully beautiful way.
Writings authored during the persecution of the first-century Christian church
There was a time in Christian history when the first-century church was under great persecution. From that time, the latter part of the New Testament Bible was wrought. These works encouraged great and inspiring writings that have led to many books, church doctrines, entire denominations, fiction and nonfiction works, and all sorts of theological studies. And when you think about the eight books of the New Testament that the apostle Paul wrote—Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians—realize that he wrote much of their content in jail, under quarantine—if you will—in captivity.
Then I think of John the revelator on the Isle of Patmos, the last remaining member of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus, exiled by the Roman government to the island. He was the disciple whom Jesus loved. John was sentenced to Patmos (Revelation 1:9), a small, rocky, and barren area where many criminals of Rome were sent to serve out their prison terms in harsh conditions. There were mines on the island that the criminals were forced to work. John was sent to the island because he would not stop preaching the gospel. Supposedly he would have no one to preach to there. But even in this forced quarantine Jesus Himself came and visited John and gave him a new assignment—write. “Write down in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches...write what you see. Write the things that happen now and the things that will happen later” (Revelation 1:11, 19).
After this John began to have visions of Jesus, heaven, and the victory of the kingdom of heaven over the systems of the world. Through sign, symbols, images, and numbers that would baffle the Roman authorities but would be clear to first-century believers, John preached encouragement and deliverance to the people of the seven churches who were under heavy persecution.
“Writer, write down what you see.”
What messages of hope, encouragement, restoration, healing, deliverance, and victory do you have? These can be written in just about any genre—nonfiction, fiction, humor, action/adventure, mystery, memoir, self-help, and more. When you think about how much even you are reading and searching online for glimmers of hope, how much more are others searching? How much more will they be searching when this is all over? People are going to need your words, even if all you do is come alongside them saying, “I see you,” or “Wow, I am feeling the same way too. You are not alone.”
We are being asked to self-quarantined, self-exile, and asked to physically distance ourselves from others while healing and restorative measures are put in place. What a time to hear from God and to write what He is saying.
The verse that I am hearing for us in this time of stillness is 1 Kings 19:11-12: “…the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”
This is a time where God has removed our normal noise and distractions so we may press in and get our ear pressed to His mouth. I do not believe that God endorses pain and suffering. I will not say that that this pandemic is God’s will. Satan is the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But as we watch God turn to good what the enemy meant for bad, let’s press into our call.
A few things we can do right now to stay on track with our writing assignments:
1. Forgive ourselves and let go of the guilt of not performing like our pre-pandemic selves.
This has been a challenging season. Outside of the normal difficulties, we are also needing to decide how to respond to a global pandemic. Between making lists on what you may need to stay healthy, then making a mad dash to the store with the jump-scare of CORONAVIRUS all around, entertaining and educating your children, praying for your church and governmental leaders, reaching out to those around you who may be infected, you probably haven’t had the time or desire to write. Let that go.
2. Reset our priorities.
Going forward, make praying, hearing, and writing a priority. Wake up with God. Wake up with thanksgiving. Wake of with hope. Wake up with the urgency that in times like this your writing matters more than ever. Fight for the time to get those words on the page. Maybe you are having trouble sleeping or your eyes are flying open earlier in the morning than usual. I challenge you to use that time to answer as the young prophet Samuel did, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10). Then get your pen and journal or your laptop, and start writing whatever is on your heart.
3. Reach out to our people.
Reach out for encouragement, accountability, guidance, reassurance that you are on the right track. Sometimes you just need to hear it. You are doing well, or here’s another way to look at it. There are several writing groups and best-selling authors doing all sorts of good things for writers during this time. Jump in on some of the writing groups, webinars, or Facebook Lives. Stay connected with your writing community.
You must find ways to nurture your creativity even in crisis, even in chaos, because if it is even just for you and God, your words matter.
Though the times in which John was writing, or Viktor Frankl, or even Frederick Douglass were some of history’s worst, the confinement and the physical or spiritual duress of the people around them gave them passion and motivation to write. All of a sudden they had nothing but time to dedicate to it. Of course, this is about choice and perspective. What are we choosing to focus on? What thoughts or actions do we need to reign in to make what we are called to do is the priority? Is it a matter of first releasing the pressure of what yesterday wasn’t it—”My family needed me, but today God is Yours.” “This hour is Yours.” “God, this moment is Yours.”
Things are changing by the moment, aren’t they? They are uncertain and somewhat scary. What are some of the things you are doing to keep writing? What are you feeling the need to write that people will want to read after this time is over?