The Gift and the Blessing

Rosemary New

Reading a good Christian book is a blessing. 

Writing a good Christian book is a gift from God—a ‘pay-it-forward’ blessing for readers. How long might it take for the writer’s gift to merge into the reader’s blessing? 

In my book, it was 22 years.

I heard these words from God one day in 1993: “I want you to write a book.”

I was shocked. Stunned. The last time I had written anything like a book was as a 7-year-old, when I asked Mum for some sheets of paper. These I folded in half, then I wrote and illustrated my short story about a mischievous kitten called Paffy. I bound the pages into a book with dress-making pins. 

With great excitement I showed Paffy, the Naughty Kitten to my schoolteacher. He returned it edited with his red pen. My spelling and punctuation transgressions were red-marked severely—and so was my soul. I was so proud of my first book—but it wasn’t good enough. 

So that day, in 1993, I replied to God, “Me? Write a book? What about?” 

He didn’t say any more but He had clearly spoken and I knew I had to get started. I turned on the computer, opened a new blank document … and waited for inspiration to come. The words poured out, like liquid through my fingers. I was astonished to read my own writing as it emerged on the screen, about the conflicts of faith our eldest son, Joshua, 17, was struggling with—the ways of the world were drawing him away from the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Writing the book through those difficult years was a gift from God. As my fingers raced across the keyboard, He would charge words with His grace for my time of need. Anything—from inspirational Christian literature, scripture, to prayer partners’ encouragements—all nourishing my soul and adding chapters to the book.

In 1995, we were called 500km to an Intensive Care Unit. Joshua was in a coma on oxygen, having had an accidental drug overdose. He had shared heroin with his girlfriend but his half-share, combined with headache medication, rendered him unconscious, near death, asphyxiating from his own vomit. Paramedics saved his life. 

He awoke from his coma the next day with no recollection of drug use but, during his coma, he heard everything I spoke while he was unresponsive. Since he couldn’t speak or move, he thought that he must have been totally paralysed in an accident. While still intubated, he scribbled on a notepad, “what did I break?” I had to tell him, “You had a drug overdose and you nearly died.” Then he tearfully apologised for who he had become. He sought rehab, trying so hard to recover his Christian integrity and be the son we would be proud of. It broke my heart that he felt so unworthy and I poured my distress, and my hope in God, into the book.

Early in 1999, Joshua attempted suicide. We rushed 500km again. He was on life support. Remembering that he heard and recalled every word I spoke during his coma in 1995, I sat beside him day after day, talking about God’s forgiveness and lovingkindness, urging Joshua to repent and re-commit his life to Christ. He was unresponsive but I knew his soul and spirit were still alive.

I wrote it all in the book. Every painful, heart-wrenching, medically hopeless diagnosis through those final seven days … yet God came through restoring MY soul with His songs in the midnight hours. When life-support was turned off, Joshua entered into the Lord’s salvation at 22 years of age.  

I continued writing the book throughout our crippling grief for the next few years but paused when I joined Christian Writers Downunder and attended a Christian writers’ retreat. I didn’t feel much like a true ‘writer’ and my book had stalled. I was such a broken person but my writing recovery has begun through the CWD friendship—and reading their books!  

In 2015, our friend, a fine Christian man, was struggling with overwhelming challenges in his life. During visits, while listening and sharing, we encouraged him to keep his focus faithful.

One day I felt impressed to lend the manuscript of my book to him.

He returned it a few days later with tears in his eyes. “I was planning,” he said in a faltering voice, “to suicide on Sunday, but I knew I had to read your book first. Thank you.”

The gift of words in my incomplete book was the pay-it-forward blessing of life for this man, twenty-two years after the book began. For that, I am so humbled at God’s gifting to write it.

Rosie New has held the gift of writing all her life, with many short stories accumulating in a private stash! But in 2015, “Simply Simon”, an entry she submitted to the Birdcatcher Books Short Fiction Award, was published in the anthology. Rosie says, “That blew me away with excitement, because I loved writing but was still afraid of getting the red pen … LOL!”

Rosie’s hobby is Miyuki glass bead-weaving tiny miniatures. She is writing her first novel and is greatly encouraged by the CWD friends who have recently published their firsts!

Beauty and Short Stories - Writing 'Touching the Sky'

Rosanne Hawke

My work in progress is a middle-grade novel. I’ve had the idea for this story for a while and even wrote a short story about the character with a different name, Zander. That short story is called ‘Touching the Sky’ and will be published soon in Dust Makers, an anthology of climate-change stories from Rhiza Edge. This is not the first time I have written a short story, then written the novel. This time I started with the idea for the novel first but wrote the short story as I began the draft to get to know my character and his voice better. I find I can’t really start writing until I know a lot about my characters, e.g. what they are like, what they want, and especially how they sound.

I also wanted to see what would emerge as a most important time in my character’s life, for this is where stories and novels most differ, I think. A short story is a slice, a moment, exploring one main event and idea in a character’s life, whereas the novel can develop many such moments into a journey the character embarks upon for months or more. I started writing with short stories – we all do because at school that’s all there is time for. One of my stories was published in a high school magazine, but my writing career began with novels. That’s what my kids wanted to read. Once I’d discovered the full canvas of a novel, I decided short stories, though beautiful, were harder to write. Rather than fine miniature painting with water colour, I think I’d prefer slapping oils on a canvas. Guess that’s not the best analogy as novels also need to be polished and fine-tuned to be beautiful – but they do give room to move with all the ideas growing from a central one. 

So why can I write a short story about climate change? I grew up in a drought in Outback Central QLD. When I wasn’t at our one teacher school or on the hour-long bus run in a converted cattle truck, I walked with my kelpie-cross dog, climbed windmills, fell off horses and was last in the bath. I learned never to waste water. 

When writing ‘Touching the Sky’ I was rereading Frederick Buechner’s books and like his father, I realised that Zander’s dad had suicided. The death of Buechner’s father affected him all his life – it is present in most of his work. Mental health is a huge problem in our rural areas, especially with the effects of climate change where crops can’t be seeded since rain doesn’t come, bushfires occur and burned animals need to be shot, and now the effects of covid on the farm business. These events have affected the most resilient of farmers. 

When writing I always hope the story will be beautiful in some way, that it will touch a reader. But what could be beautiful when a dad dies in a story? We could think of the form, the words, the way the character heals, but I’m wondering if beauty has more to do with light. There is a story about the famous Dutch artist Vermeer where he was unhappy with a painting. The character was portrayed well, the composition correct, but he knew something vital was missing. He finally realised there was no light. He painted in a window so light could shine on the side of a face, on the folds of a dress – subtle use of colour to show beauty. In our writing where does the beauty originate? From the Light of the World. I’m learning that a thing is beautiful not because we deem it so, but because Christ Jesus has made it so.

In a story, this beauty and light will shine in the way the theme is treated, the form of the story, the setting, choice of words, images, that phrase which paints a picture without even using an adjective, the arresting verbs, the light shed on the face of the character and in his heart. May this Light in our stories become God’s way of wooing a reader into a loving relationship with him. 

The anthology Dust Makers will be released in October by Rhiza Press

Pre-order at http://wombatrhiza.com.au/Dust-makers 

Image credit: Ailsa Green, Dust Storm near Hawker, South Australia, used with permission.

Rosanne Hawke is an Australian author from Penola, South Australia who has written over 25 books for young adults and children. She teaches tertiary level Creative Writing at Tabor Adelaide. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.