When it comes to how we spend our time, there are good ways and bad ways, right? There are things that we deem worthwhile uses of our time . . . and things we deem not worthwhile.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve had a couple conversations with my best friend about what’s worthwhile–for our kids, for ourselves. Most recently, the conversation involved me giving her a pep talk, not unlike other times when she’s had to give pretty much the same pep talk to me. ? After coming off a very serious project, the next thing on our list sometimes feels, well . . . silly. Inconsequential. Nearly selfish.

And we struggle with guilt over spending time on it, because does it really matter?

Obviously, the answer to this might be different based on what that project is. But in general, if it’s something we’ve already laid out for ourselves, there’s a reason behind it. Sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that there are different types of useful. There’s ministering to the homeless on the streets, and there’s reading to kids at a school. Both are good. Both are worthwhile. Both can really impact a life. But one’s a bit harder, right? That doesn’t mean the other is less valuable. Worth less. It’s just different. And at different times in our lives, we might need that different type of service.

But we’d also been talking about this as it has to do with our kids, and the things they like to spend their time on. I have to think this is something most modern parents debate.

Are video games okay? YouTube videos? Television? Social media? How much is too much? What is worthwhile?

I admit to quite a bit of frustration on this topic. Because I have these ideas of what’s worthwhile, what’s okay, what’s useful to my kids. Reading, obviously. Outside time. Extracurricular activities. A little TV’s okay. 

My children don’t always agree.

It’s been a struggle, sometimes. But I have to say that what made me look at it from a different perspective was when someone else commented on the same thing I’d whined about before. (Yes, I’m one of those people who tend to think, “I can chastise my kids for what they’re doing wrong, but you don’t get to. That’s my job, not yours.” LOL) When someone else commented on the uselessness of the YouTube videos my son likes to watch, I found myself coming to the defence, not just of Rowyn for watching them, but of the whole phenomenon. These young people have found a way to create a new medium. They’ve made ridiculous amounts of money providing something that kids today enjoy–basically, videos of themselves playing games.

Do I understand it? Not exactly. But . . . isn’t that what an awful lot of TV is too? Reality shows in particular. Those have become pretty darn accepted by the masses. But the same person who can’t miss an episode of their favorite might snarl at the so-dubbed YouTubers. Is that fair, though? Just because it’s not the medium you prefer, does that mean it’s worse? Nope. I really think they deserve a lot of kudos for creating something that has really struck a chord with today’s youth. And it’s a lot more “real” in a lot of ways than reality TV. They’re showing their failures and struggles as well as their victories. Maybe in something “silly” like a video game–but those are still life lessons, right? That sometimes to achieve your goal, you have to try it over and over again. You fail. You go back to the beginning. And you keep trying.

And what about the thing I love best–fiction? Is that really any different? How often have people sneered at popular fiction? Romance? At fiction rather than non-fiction? A LOT. And they’ve been sneering for hundreds of years. The thing I love has been deemed not-worthwhile by a lot of people. So maybe…maybe I ought to be careful about what I judge to be not-worthwhile.

In college, someone once asked me, “Why do you always have a novel with you?” My answer was, “Because I value my sanity.” To me, that Love Inspired novel was absolutely worthwhile. It was necessary to my mental health. Reading Christian Fiction provided a much-needed counterbalance to all the heavy philosophy I had to read for school. Plenty of people didn’t think it was worthwhile.

But I knew better.

So how does that translate for this new generation? What things that I don’t understand are not just okay but are necessary for their sanity, their development in this world I’ve helped create? Well, for starters, they really do need to be savvy with the screens. Unless something apocalyptic happens, they’re going to be using them even more than I do.

Next, I need to grant that their favorite YouTube channels aren’t any less inane than the TV I spent my weekends watching as a kid. (I’m sorry, but mutated adolescent turtles and singing raisins aren’t exactly brilliant things either, LOL.)

And finally, I just need to pray that their own life’s callings, their passions, will somehow be fed by the media at their fingertips. My love of what some would call “silly romance novels” has led me to my ministry, my career, my calling. Who’s to say what my kids might be led to?

Is this something that you struggle with in your family?

This is indisputable fact. I’m writing 6 books in 18 months, I homeschool my kids, I do much of the day-to-day running of WhiteFire Publishing, I design book covers and interior layouts, I cook, I (occasionally) clean, I knit, I’m pianist at my church, I’m a ballet mom, and I teach a class pretty much every semester at our homeschool association. There are days when I’m just so exhausted it’s all I can do to think.

But it’s funny, right? I look back at where I was, say, seven years ago. Only one of my kids needed to be taught. I was working on my first book that would be published by someone else. WhiteFire was only two or three authors other than me. I did no design work. Xoe had just started ballet, so it was only one night a week (now it’s two). We didn’t do Bible study yet at our church. I had no responsibilities in our homeschool group. My house was more of a mess than it is now, and we more often ate canned soup for dinner.

And I felt so overwhelmed. I’m talking, break down in tears because I felt like I couldn’t do it all overwhelmed. My constant prayer was that God would expand my time. That He’d refresh me because I was so drained. That somehow He would do it all for me, because I didn’t think I could.

That’s a familiar refrain in the world. I can’t tell you how many times I hear someone say, “Oh, I could never ______.” Fill in the blank.

I could never homeschool.

I could never write a book.

I could never work from home.

I could never work outside the home.

I could never go into foreign missions.

I could never give that up.

I could never take that on.

I could never . . .

And it’s true, you know? We can’t just do everything. Especially not on our own. But with friends, with family, with our churches, and most importantly, with God, we can be equipped to do exactly what He calls us to do. No more…but no less.

But how often do we let our fears, insecurities, and laziness interfere with that call? How often do we give up on or not even attempt to do that thing God has whispered in our ear because we don’t think we can?

Back when Xoe was in kindergarten, I was seriously considering giving up on this whole homeschool thing. I didn’t think I could anymore. I couldn’t write and teach and take care of a toddler all at the same time. That was that time of overwhelming, when it was all so much, so heavy, that I was just exhausted by it.

Around that time, we had a healing service at our church, led by a Spirit-filled couple visiting from another church in our association. I remember slipping into a pew at the back of the church–so I could slip out again with my toddler if necessary. There weren’t a lot of people there–maybe 15 or 20. I didn’t want to draw attention. But I knew I needed something. I wasn’t sick, but I was tired. Still, I didn’t want to take the time of these guests when there were people there so desperate for a healing touch and me…I was okay. I was fine. I was getting along.

But the husband of the couple came back and slid into the pew in front of me and turned to face me. I’ll never forget what he said. “You don’t need a healing. But you need…something. Right? Refreshing?”

I’m not one for tears, but they filled my eyes at that moment, and I nodded. “I feel so overwhelmed,” I said.

So he prayed for me. He prayed that God would shore me up, that He’d be my strength, that He’d breathe new life into my spirit and refresh me. He sat there for probably ten minutes and talked to me about putting on that Spiritual armor every day–and told me that sometimes wearing it isn’t so we can be on the offensive, but on the defensive. That sometimes he imagines curling up into that armor and hiding in it, as if it’s a turtle shell.

Because when we hide in Him, He takes care of it all.

That evening, something shifted. Maybe I didn’t have a physical illness that needed to be healed, but my spirit needed it. And my spirit received it.

Never, in the intervening seven years, have I ever again felt like I did back then. Oh, I get tired. Exhausted. Frustrated. Overwhelmed. But only physically and mentally. Never spiritually. Thanks to that shift, I kept on homeschooling…and man. I know my kids would have been fine wherever they got their education, but I can’t even count all the amazing moments we would have missed out on had I given it up when it really wasn’t the time for me to step aside from it!

I didn’t feel capable. And maybe I wasn’t. But He was. He is.

With God fighting our battles for us, we can do whatever He asks. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t supposed to be. The thing is, it’s possible. We become capable, in Him, of doing the things we are not capable of doing by ourselves.

I really can’t tell you what changed that day in that back pew of my church. I can just tell you that the things that exhausted me then are but a portion of my daily tasks now. We get used to burdens until they don’t feel like burdens anymore–that’s part of it. The weight that it took all our effort to lift when we first started our training becomes easy over time if we keep working our muscles, right? The same goes in life. In our tasks. In our callings. In our spiritual lives.

I’m not saying busy is the best state to always be in. And I’m not saying there aren’t still plenty of things that I have to say “No” to or delegate to someone else. I’m certainly no Superwoman.

But we’re never asked to do the things He calls us to alone. We’re just asked to step up, be willing, and follow in His footsteps.

This past weekend I just began my rotation teaching the kids at my church (being a small church, we alternate who’s in with them so that the same person doesn’t have the responsibility all the time). I decided to start a 36-week course aimed at tweens and teens (our kids range from 9-13), and it goes through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each in a 12-week course that focuses on a lot of tenets of faith, as they fall under the different headings. 

This first week, the focus was on God the Father as Creator.

Now, this is something the kids have studied so many times that they kinda start to groan when you say that’s the topic of the day, LOL. They know Genesis. They’ve got it this way, that way, and the next way too. My kids have had homeschool classes on it. It’s been covered by teacher after teacher at church. But this was a different take on it.

This was focused on why they should care that God is the Creator. What it really means for them. And for those who don’t profess to faith. 

As I was preparing the lesson, an analogy struck me that I was pretty darn excited about, as it seems really perfect for this video-gaming generation. So I figured I’d lay it out here.

God is Creator. Even people who aren’t Christians, people who don’t really know what they believe, generally grant this. Obviously atheists don’t, but I daresay if you go up to most people on the street and say, “Hey, do you think there’s a Being who created the universe?” they’d say, “Yeah, probably. Sure.”

So with that as a premise, we move into our video game analogy–and with a video game, there’s obviously no debate about if, right? Obviously there’s a creator.

Well, a month or two ago, my 10-year-old, video-game-happy son called me in to the living room. “Mama, you’ve got to see this! Watch! It’s a video of the creator of the game playing this level. He does it perfectly.”

It was true–and a lot of fun to watch. Because the game creator knew all the tricks, obviously. Every hidden door. Every power-up. He could get every coin, kill every boss, hit every ledge just right. He not only got the maximum number of points the level would allow, he did it in a time way faster than we ever could, skipping half those coins.

Because he knew that game with the perfect, intimate knowledge that only a creator can have.

Now, let’s say this video game was serious business. Fun, yes, but maybe you’d entered a competition. You were at one of those big gaming conventions, and you had one of the seats. There was a big prize at stake. Huge money, maybe. The person with the highest score at the end of the day would win. Serious stuff, not just a play for fun in your living room sort of thing. High stakes. (Kinda like life.)

Then let’s say that the creator showed up at the convention and announced to all the players, “Hey, I’m having a seminar at 10:00. Everyone’s welcome. I’m going to show you guys all the tricks, all the hidden doors, what to watch out for, and how to get the highest score possible.”

You’d be an idiot not to go, right? Because he’s the creator. He knows it all. And he’s offering to share that knowledge.

But not everyone goes. Some because they think they know better than him. Some because they say it won’t be as fun if they do. Some because it’ll cramp their style. Maybe some even doubt that this guy is really the creator–probably just some phony trying to get in their heads and psych them out.

But the people that go–they come away with some amazing knowledge on how to play the game, don’t they? Maybe it’ll take a little practice to figure it all out. Maybe sometimes, when they try that difficult maneuver he showed them, they mess up. Maybe sometimes they doubt they can really do it. But the creator ends up on the convention floor, at the competition. He’s there, whispering advice and instructions along the way. He’s invested. He wants people to succeed, and to have fun doing it.

I’m sure you see the analogy. If life, this world, is the video game, then God is the ultimate creator. He knows all the ins-and-outs. Where every boss hides, the secrets to bringing them down. He knows the secret doors and power-ups. He can, and did, play this game perfectly, as Jesus. And He offers His knowledge, His guidance, to everyone.

But not everyone cares. Not everyone wants to listen. It’ll hamper their style, and it sure won’t be as much fun, right?

Um…I don’t know about you, but I don’t find failing at a video game much fun. I find it frustrating. I’d rather know how to do something then keep banging my head against the pixelated wall. Same goes in life. I like the guidance, thank you. I like knowing that the Creator has my back and is there whispering in my ear, “This way. Don’t forget about that right there. Now you want to pause. Now it’s time to go.”

If you’re going to grant the Creator…why would you not listen to Him? At least, if your goal is to succeed. You’d listen to him on the game convention floor, right?

So let’s listen to Him in life too. Common sense. Especially when the stakes are so much higher than a few thousand dollars.

In my church’s Wednesday night Bible study, we’ve been reading through Romans, taking it just a few verses at a time and really digging deep, beneath the easy and accepted answers to try to grasp the subtleties of what Paul is saying. Most recently, we’ve been in chapter 7, where Paul is talking about how we battle with sin.

Using the present tense, he talks about his own struggles to do the right thing and not do the wrong thing. This isn’t just the battle or the sin from before the Damascus Road experience–this is now. I think all too often people use this as an excuse. “Look, even Paul still struggled with sin, so surely it’s not surprising that I do!”

But it’s important to ask what sins he’s talking about. Is he still struggling with persecuting Christians? I don’t think so. With legalism? Paul’s letters certainly never indicated that this is something he deals with–in fact, we see him in Acts calling out others on it.

So should we be still struggling with our Big Sins from before we accepted Christ? Or rather, should we be okay with still struggling with those, just accepting it as part of humanity? That has never sat right with me.

And on Good Friday last week, the sermon brought this up again in my thoughts. We had a guest speaker, a retired pastor who is a regular attendee at our church. As he spoke about the work of the Cross and how the crucified Christ worked His salvation miracle for all our sins, he touched again on how those sins change over the years.

How the closer we grow to our perfect God, the more imperfections we can see in ourselves. We’re not struggling with the same old sins, repeating them over and again. We’re becoming ever mindful of new levels we need to reach.

Much as I hate cleaning, this is a perfect analogy. I could use any number of examples–property after a tornado, a house after a flood, a child’s messy room, a table on which you’ve been kneading dough. The same principles apply to all.

When you begin cleaning, you start with the Big Stuff. The trees and branches; the debris and destroyed furniture; the entire toy box worth of contents on the floor; the mounds of flour and bits of crusty dough.

In being cleansed from sin, these are the obvious things. The murder and adultery and idolatry. This is where God is saying, “Yeah, we’ll worry later about whether you pray in every moment you should. Right now, let’s just make sure you’re not still frequenting the prostitutes at the temple in Corinth, okay?” I’m not saying clearing this is easy. It’s not. It’s hard work, and if you’ve been mired in these big, noticeable sins for a long time, breaking free of them is work. Manual labor style, exhausting work. But there’s no question of whether you need to do it after you come to Christ, so you buckle down and get to it.

But once the big stuff is cleared out, after you take a breather, thinking, “Wow, I did good work! I cleaned up a lot of my life! Let me just take a peek at what I’ve done…” you go back and look. And do you know what you see?

All the twigs still scattered around your property. The mud on your floor. The bits of paper and trash in your kid’s room. The oval of flour on the table that just won’t brush off.

Maybe in your spiritual life, this is the loving your neighbor and loving God first. Still important things, right? Your yard or house or room or table sure don’t look clean with them there. Similarly, your spiritual life is obviously not right if you say you’ve accepted Christ but can’t spare a kind word for anyone around. So you set to work on those too.

And once you finish this round, it might look pretty good, right? If you don’t look too closely, it’s neat and tidy.

But we’re not finished. There are still leaves in the yard. The room needs scrubbed. The floor needs to be vacuumed. The table wiped down, maybe even sprayed with something. And it doesn’t end there, either. Because the wind will blow again, footprints will be tracked in, new toys dropped, fingerprints or new food will land on that clean table.

Cleaning up our souls is a process too–a never-ending one. Because as we continue to live and encounter new situations, new clutter or dirt lands on us, right? It’s not that we should be continually working on those first things–it’s that the cleaner we get, the more nit-picky we get. Those tiny flaws that weren’t even visible under the big problems–the nooks and crannies of our spirits–need our attention once the bigger stuff is cleared away.

But I love that our God is so big and yet so detail-oriented. The God of the cyclone is also the God of the whisper. The Lord who forgives us for the Big Sins also pours out His mercy on those nooks and crannies.

Because He wants us to be Holy, as He is holy.

He doesn’t want us to be content with clean enough. He wants our souls and spirits and hearts to be pure. Pristine. Like His.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a post about how, in our churches, we needed to take a stand–not for what we’re against, but for what we’re for.

But as my husband and I were talking a few weeks ago about how to really change the culture, he hit on this again. And I realized that the thoughts I’d applied to our churches can–should–be extended to a whole lot more. Bear with me as I try to reason through my thoughts on this.

As an author, my thoughts often start with books (go figure, LOL). “What,” people ask over and again, “is Christian fiction?” And some definitions will be all about the negative–what they don’t have. Christian fiction doesn’t have sex scenes. Doesn’t have bad language. Doesn’t have…

True. But it’s a whole lot more than that. Christian fiction has a faith thread. Christian fiction is about how ultimately our stories are incomplete until they include God. Christian fiction is about seeing His love for us play out in a fictional world.

It’s not enough to write a book that lacks bad things. We need to write books that have good things. Good writing. Solid characterizations. Intriguing plots–what all good books need. Plus. Plus faith, plus Truth. Plus the Lord. Christian fiction needs to be more, not less, to be successful.

Because we’re never going to reach a hurting world just with messages of No. People don’t ever want to subscribe to the negative–they want something to believe in, not something to be against.

Let’s look at the culture for a minute, and where secularism seems to be winning. First example–the abortion question. I noticed when I was just a kid that both sides phrased their stance as a Pro. Pro-Choice, Pro-Life. No one is ever going to call themselves Anti-Life or Anti-Choice. Right? Because that’s by definition negative.

But what about the actions both sides take? Protests–protests are all too often negative. They’re protesting against something, not for it. And I honestly think this is when they fail. Because though we call ourselves Pro-Life, let’s face it–far too often we’re just anti-abortion. Which means we don’t have in place the things that affect a positive change–the clinics and support groups and counseling and open arms–so much as a willingness to speak against abortion and call it criminal, to denounce anyone who would consider it, to name the evil. This is what leads to abortion clinic bombings…and gee, I don’t think that gets us a whole lot of points with people of different opinions, does it? It doesn’t convince anyone to change their mind. All it does is convince people that we’re irrational and against free will.

Where Pro-Life really shines is when we share the heartache of the girls and women, when we offer love instead of judgement. But all too often, they don’t get that from our side. They get it from the Pro-Choice side. How topsy-turvy is that?

That is, though, just one example. There are so, so many more. So many times when Christians just take a reactionary stance. Where we take a stand…against. Against homosexual marriage. Against abortion. Against the removal of the Ten Commandments from public places. Against the removal of prayer from schools.

And each and every one of those stances have failed. Why? Because we’re not standing for anything.

Why aren’t we more often, publicly, taking a stand for? For forgiving sinners. For offering second chances. For teaching our children right from wrong. For proving that the hard thing is often the best thing. For demonstrating that we’re stronger, better with God than on our own. For covenants. For bonds. For families. For community.

That’s a whole lot harder. It means giving of ourselves. It means offering help to people. It means sacrifice. It means danger. It means persecution.

It means changing the culture.

For the past few weeks…or perhaps months…I’ve had this realization swirling through my mind. One that explains why I like some historical fiction better than others. One that most of the world (or at least the mainstream world) doesn’t seem to share.

My thoughts on this started when I read a bestselling ABA historical, The Alice Network, a few months ago. I’d been on the wait-list on Overdrive for months–so long that I’d forgotten I’d requested it, or why, or who recommended it to me by the time it actually arrived on my Kindle, LOL. But I read it, and overall I really enjoyed it. The writing is phenomenal, and the story was gripping–a dual story line, one about a female spy for England in WWI occupied France (hence why it was recommended to me), and the other just after WWII, following a young woman as she goes in search of her missing French cousin. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything outside the Christian market, so there was a wee bit of culture shock to suddenly have bedroom scenes and bad language in front of me, LOL. But that didn’t really get to me (I mean, I do watch TV, so that’s not exactly shocking to my senses, much as I don’t like it). It wasn’t the historical character’s rather modern take on sexuality–that actually had an explanation that built the character and was necessary for her development.

What bothered me was a relatively small plot point (and in no way ruins the whole book, which was fabulous): the fact that the author took an actual historical figure and turned him into an adulterer–excusing it by describing his wife as half crazy and self-obsessed. This isn’t new in mainstream historical fiction–this is why I couldn’t stand to watch Turn after the first season–but it bothers me. For so many reasons, it bothers me. Not just in this instance, but as a symptom of society’s views today.

First of all, it goes against my personal code for writing historical novels (not that I hold others to my standard, but it’s what got my attention about it first). I determined long ago the kind of historical fiction I wanted to write, and it obeys a simple mantra that I developed: Facts are sacred, motivation is up for grabs.

Which is to say, if something is recorded as happening, then it happened. Period. I will not mess with fact. But as for why things happen, why people make the choices they do…even if history gives us a reason, who’s to say the writer of that history really knew what was going on in the person’s heart or mind? The why is always open for interpretation in my book. And in my books. ?

So I get a little twitchy when other historical writers play fast and loose with facts. But I can imagine the author of this book claiming that’s exactly what she was doing–she was explaining the facts with this motivation. That this fellow was in love with her fictional character. Which is great…except that it means a historical figure was turned into an adulterer. By my definition, this changes his fact. Because it changes a person’s entire moral fiber. It’s one thing to create a fictional mistress for a known womanizer. It’s quite another to take someone recorded as a man of upright character and decide he’d be more interesting if he had an affair. If it were me, I’d have no problem writing him as falling in love with my character–motivation–but I wouldn’t have changed his fact. He never would have acted on it, and his nobility would have had the same effect on the heroine that his physical love did, to drive her onward.

With all the insistence that writers not defame historical figures (because let’s face it, we never know when descendants might sue), I’m not sure how and why this particular defamation is okay. But in today’s society, it seems to be. And that is what ultimately bothers me. Not that an author would do it, but that no one cares. I’m not just upset on behalf of the bygone people (though can you imagine if someone wrote YOU this way in 90 years??), but because it speaks to what our culture doesn’t even consider bad anymore. Apparently it doesn’t bother most of today’s readers to think that a man cheats on his wife, especially if his wife isn’t exactly likable.

That hurts my heart. And takes me back to my title. So much of the world today cares little for the sacred. And by that, I mean matters of faith and God and the Church, yes, but also those moral covenants we make with one another. When I speak of preserving the sacred in fiction, I want it to include faith, to include facts, but also to include that understanding of bonds, of covenants, of things larger than ourselves or our happiness.

It used to be that a person’s reputation was everything. Today, it seems that being infamous is just as desirable as being famous. That notoriety has eclipsed respect. We’ve gone from making heroes of our villains to making villains of our heroes, and we don’t even notice that we’ve done it. Our definitions have changed.

But I think the questions still need to be asked: What gives us the right to redefine what they believed, those who came before us? To change the type of people they were? We don’t have to agree with it–with their stands, with their beliefs, with their facts. But all too often today, people want to change it. To turn ordinary, low-level authority military men into adulterers. To turn godly men who happened to fight for the Confederacy into villains. To strip Christians in history of the very things they stood for and not see the problem with it…because we don’t value those things anymore.

But if we do that…who’s to say our own beliefs–whether we think the sacred or the self more important–won’t be rewritten after we have gone?