I was talking to a friend about the
message of my novel. The
story has many messages I suppose, but perhaps the most important one is the
message of grace. I want to share the
truth that no one of us is better than another; that we are flawed and
imperfect and perfectly redeemable.
I filled my story with imperfect
people making mistakes and doing harm.
One character, though, remained less tainted than the rest. Claire—my main character. She was a little anxious, but otherwise
filled with faith and good will. Bless
her. What a gem.
My beta readers weren’t as impressed
with Claire as I was. They said she was
boring. They said she lacked
excitement. They said she was too
safe. She was. She is the stay-at-home
mom married to the cop who always had a wonderful attitude about life’s
challenges. A
Pollyanna. Yawn. The thing is, I’m writing what I know, Claire
was a cleaned-up version of what I hoped I could be.
I am not as wonderful as
Claire. My attitude stinks. I’ve entertained angry, unkind thoughts about
my husband and sometimes I judge people unfairly and I am selfish. My house is often messy and I waste more time
than I’d like to admit and I’ve withheld forgiveness more times than I can
count.
Claire was fiction at its finest.
So, I got to work on her. If my life was the inspiration for Claire,
she was going to have to gain some flaws, angst and ugliness. I was going to have to let her fail. Allow her to be stupid and selfish and
wrong. She was going to have to suffer
shame.
Why?
Because if I’m going to write about
grace, I have to give grace a dark place to go, so the light of grace can shine
brightly.
I showered Claire with flaws and
angst and ugliness so that my readers will care and relate and possibly see
themselves in her story. It hurt to do
it because I share some of her flaws—what if people think I’ve done those
things? And there it is. A truth.
People don’t relate to perfect Christians who have it all together and
can show us how to have it all together too.
They relate to real, broken, messed up people who had to scrape and
scratch their way to God's grace. What if
people think I’m just like Claire (because the resemblances are pretty
stunning)? Well, maybe they’ll relate
and feel a sisterhood and realize they can find sweet grace too.
I celebrate with Claire as she
overcomes the bondage of sin and anger.
I celebrate with her as her eyes open to the joy found in giving and
receiving grace. I have grown along with
Claire as I’ve helped her find her way.
As the revisions continue, I am thankful for the opportunity to
improve my manuscript. I’m even more thankful that in real life, we can revise our
story too. There’s plenty of grace to go
around.
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