Creatives in the Sandbox of Life

Should we listen to the voices that try to box us in, even if they seem 'godly?'

I’ve written stories since before I could spell — I dictated my stories for a family member to write down on copy paper, and then I illustrated those pages, and let my mom staple them together. I wrote stories because it has always been a type of breathing. That’s never really changed… but some things have.

When I was five, creating stories was simply fun.

Sometimes, I didn’t always write them down in my various sketchbooks and notebooks — sometimes, when it was just us kids around the campfire at night, when we first moved to the homestead we’ve built here, I would tell scary stories. One of my older sisters would laugh at me, but my little brother would hang on every word. (I had to stop doing this part because I gave him nightmares.) It was still that — fun. Came as naturally as breathing. I didn’t have to think. The stories came off my tongue a little crooked, but on paper, they came off smoothly.

I kept writing and when I hit preteens and teenhood, life completely changed. Life does that. For me, it meant one of my sisters, one that had abused me for years without me fully understanding what abuse even was, left us. For me, it meant my mom becoming very ill, and there were times that we thought we might lose her. For me, it meant caregiving for my mom and trying to help my dad upkeep the home so we could push on and get my mom the help she needed. For me, it meant years of treatments for my chronically ill mom. For me, it meant a big move and building more homes with my family and living in a moldy camper (without knowing) and getting sick, too.

Still, through it all, I wrote.

In the camper, after I did all my chores and finished all my school, I wrote. Sometimes, I woke at 5 AM and wrote as much as I could before the day began. I clung to my stories — and it was, ironically, this time that I began to understand that the writing community I was in was trying their best to box me in.

Box in.

That’s something we do a lot as humanity.

I remember when I was about fourteen or so, cooking dinner — I couldn’t cook much, so spaghetti again, it was — and listening to some online sermon. The pastor was telling kids my age that they needed to ‘get to church,’ ‘serve the church,’ and find their place in the mission field. He insisted that there was nothing as godly as fellowshipping with fellow believers and we had to get out there and do it. I tried, for a moment, to understand the truth he was speaking… but I turned it off and simply cried while trying not to let the ground beef burn, while knowing damn well my mother was in her room, probably crying in pain because it was rainy and the rain always worsened things, knowing that my dad would be home soon and he would be exhausted, and I didn’t want any of them to see me crying. Still… in that moment? Because of that sermon? I thought I was the most selfish person alive, because I wasn’t in a youth group with kids my age, and I wasn’t serving hungry kids in Africa, and I wasn’t finding my place in a church. I was ‘behind’ and ‘not doing things right’ to serve God.

And then I felt God practically hug me and remind me that I was where I needed to be.

There was nothing wrong with me for being in the place I was. I wasn’t being punished, and neither was my mom, because that’s the other thing so many countless believers throw at the sick: if you had more faith, you would be healed.

If we could be healed by our own devices, would we need faith? Is faith a tool to use to appease some angry god? Or is faith love? Is it living our lives exactly as God calls us to, even when the multitudes scream that we are doing things incorrectly? (And beyond this, who are each of us to look at someone and decide if they have ‘enough faith?’ Are we fit to question God and the seasons of life and the unique journeys of individual people?)

Only, these judgments aren’t limited to walks of faith alone: creative believers continue the nonsensical judgments toward fellow creatives, as well.

I see it daily. I see writers saying: “You should try to be like the great writers.” “You should not write books with swearing — it’s not godly.” “You should never write X genre because it isn’t edifying to God.” “You should never write something that could possibly cause someone to stumble!”

Box in.

What if… just what if… we wrote… and lived… for God… by God… with God… And blocked out the voices so incessant that we are not loving/following God the way they say to?

I have had people tell me my stories were ungodly, whether because of content or genres. I have had people shield their eyes as they pass my tables at events because of my fantasy book covers. I have had people belittle and berate me for choosing a different path. I have had people insist that I was not following God because I wasn’t writing ‘clean Christian fiction.’ I’ve had the industry insist I couldn’t maintain a market in the balance between hope in fiction and too gritty.

Box in.

Break out.

I haven’t looked back. I do not care. I hear the voices every day on socials, dozens, hundreds of voices, clamoring at one another and insisting that the other is wrong or sinful.

And while I have been ignoring the pandemonium, God has allowed my stories to do some good.

My stories have helped guide people away from suicide. My stories have helped people grieving. My stories have helped people grasp spiritual warfare. My stories have given people a fun binge-read. My stories have given people a laugh. My stories have encouraged people that they are not alone. My stories have inspired young readers to do what they love to do. My stories have been a light… They have been what they are, and that is enough.

God has helped me find my voice, helped me stay on my journey, and because of that, I’m able to help the people He needs me to help… But it’s out of my control, still. Do you see? Because I am not god, and I cannot control how a reader perceives my story, and I cannot box in my stories to control them and make them do what I think God wants them to do. Where is the faith in God to use our unique stories as He intends and to simply use the art as a form of worship instead of holding the pages and telling God what he can or cannot do, or trying to enforce readers’ perceptions and understandings? Is the latter faith?

There is a freedom and insanity when it comes to stories and the human spirit. That is why, I believe, people try so desperately to control them, even to the extent of deciding what God can and cannot use. The people saying that a story must be this way or that, or that a writer must do this and that, are the people that are seeking control, and I think that the best way to love the Lord and write the stories He has for you to write… is to ignore the voices, surrender any illusion of control, and pour your own soul out onto the page. (Or if you’re not a creative at all, but all you hear is, ‘if you had more faith…’ then these words are for you, as well, friend.)

It’s scary. But scary things are not always as sinful as we like to claim they are.

It is not a sin to do what God says and not allow the crowds to dictate your journey. Once you accept this, life truly does take some wild turns — does it get easier? No. But there is a joy that doesn’t really leave, isn’t there? There is a joy knowing that your story is how it ought to be, and you worshiped and grew through the story as you had to, and you trust that it will help who it needs to help, too.

Because stories are about being human. I sort of like to look at it like this: God is the ultimate author and there’s nothing new under the sun. But because He loves us, he gives us a box of crayons and pencils, with piles of fresh paper, and He says, “Go on.” And we get to write, draw, sing, create, our stories in a sandbox that has already created the ends of the earth… because He loves us. Because we may share that love and pour it into what we touch. Of course, it will not always resemble His perfect love. Of course, it will be messy. Of course, it will be human. Of course, it will be ours, as it is His. It’s as if we’re still truly five-year-olds playing stories just for the reason of breathing.

So, go on, friend. Create. Write. Sing. Draw. Live. Love. Unabashedly. Unashamedly. Ignore the voices, even if they sound like the words of a friend, if they try to box you in and away from the sandbox the Lord has given you since the moment you were created.

Angela