Beating Writers' Block

I told Angie I was having a lot of trouble thinking of things to write, so she thought she’d randomly select a topic. This week’s topic is a book that changed my life, or at least the way I thought about things. There are actually two books that meet the criteria for topic, because they go hand in hand and have made the complete difference in how I think and the life I live.

In my senior year of high school, I was trying to figure out who I was and where I was going. I also felt like there was a piece missing deep inside me, though at the time I couldn’t define it. I was looking for something to give my life meaning. I had been to church, but it didn’t really click, and the Christian students I knew weren’t any different than the non-Christians. In fact, the Christians seemed to be the ones more inclined to be rowdy delinquents! There were other students, though, who didn’t seem to be judgmental and came across as very peaceful and centered. They were self-proclaimed wiccans and druids. I started studying Wicca and I liked what I learned; that it was a nature-based religion that had nothing to do with worshipping Satan. They celebrated the cycles of nature and practiced magick. I set up an altar in my room, collected spell books, tarot cards, crystals, and candles.

I don’t know if Angie was troubled by my choice or worship or not, but she asked me to read a book that she had found interesting. Frank Peretti is a Christian author who wrote the books This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. Angie had given me This Present Darkness and in the story there’s a girl who studies Wicca and has to deal with the demons unleashed by the practices. After I read it I decided Wicca wasn’t the way to go, and Angie and I made a conga line between my room and the trash can, throwing away everything I owned that had anything to do with Wicca. It was kind of a game – Angie was happy and that made me happy. I was a big, bad Christian and could flaunt that I had gotten away from Satan.

I threw away all the paraphernalia, but not my way of life. I still did things that I wasn’t proud of, played stupid games, all the while calling myself a Christian. It was much the same things that those kids in high school did, and that I was high-minded enough in my own esteem to recognize. Then I read Piercing the Darkness. It resounded truer than the first book did; again a girl in the book gave her life to Jesus. This time however, I was stopped. I had what some would describe as a mystical experience, though I know in my logical mind that there are many people who would roll their eyes at such a phrase. But I consciously thought, “If Jesus died 2,000 years ago for a girl like that, doesn’t that mean he could’ve died for me too?” At that moment I felt/heard a voice say, “Get on your knees and pray NOW.” I was overwhelmed with the need to do exactly that. I put the book down, went into my room, closed the door, and from somewhere of all my years of touch-and-go Christianity I came up with what I now recognize as the “sinner’s prayer”.

I can’t remember exactly what I said or how long I stayed there, but I knew instinctively when I was done. I stood up and looked out the window – never before had the sky looked so blue or the sunlight so golden. I looked at the world created fresh, just for me.

My daily spiritual journey has never matched the purity and clarity of that day; there are some days I don’t want to do what’s right, or be nice and forgiving, and there are also days I think God must look at me and wonder what happened. Sometimes God feels distant and my own journey stagnant and/or heading the wrong direction. But I always go back to that memory; it serves as my anchor and pulls me gently back on track. Even when I don’t feel it, I still remember whose I am.