Screenplays That Must Be Lived.

Hey there, RBRN Crew. Grace here! I want to share a little story.

A couple of years ago, the Lord started taking me through a process of rebuilding. There were some things that - over the course of my life, and especially into my adulthood - had been fractured, or broken. He wanted to bring healing.

I went to Barnes and Noble, wanting to buy a new Bible. The one I felt drawn to was technically a kids Bible - pink, with no study notes and no influential brands attached. It was just the word of God that I had grown up with, devoid of my years of markings.

I sat in a service that night, and one thing sticks out to this day - this feeling that the Lord was teaching me childlikeness again. What does childlikeness mean? I am sure that many would have their opposing or added viewpoints. However, to me, childlikeness meant learning to dream again. It meant learning hope and trust again. It meant believing that my life could change - as I once had believed, back when the world seemed wide open to me.

Last year, I started working on a script entitled, “Life and The Living.” In this script, Zoe is grappling with whether or not to keep her baby. An elder woman - familiar with the voice of God - comes into the picture, alongside her husband, Fred. With their help, she not only chooses life for her baby, but for herself. A huge part of this process comes by way of a learned hope.

Zoe had a broken childhood, and she really doesn’t know how to believe for anything different than that - for herself, or for her baby. Fred teaches her to dream for this life she carries - to imagine who this child could become, in all their minute details. Perhaps it’s a girl. Perhaps she has curly hair, and blue eyes. Perhaps she chases frogs, and relishes in the great outdoors. Perhaps she hates dresses, and loves the color orange.

While neither of them can know if any of these things will prove true, Fred prompts Zoe to believe that life includes the possibility of goodness. Where she has begun to even devalue and question her own living, he teaches her that hope is like a muscle to be exercised. The more she does it, the easier it will be. It doesn’t mean that grief doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean that the world becomes less broken. Ultimately, this story points us towards the God who can change any situation, and who works all things for the good of those who love Him - who are called according to His purpose for them (Romans 8:28).

All of the above being said, “Life and The Living” was a screenplay I had to - in limited ways - experience with the Lord, before I could ever author it. I’ve never taken an abortion pill, and I’ve never been pregnant. But the Lord had to take me through an emotional and spiritual process of my own, before I could communicate the messaging and heart of this story. I could not have unpacked hope if I did not understand it. I could not have preached a belief in a better life if I had not come to understand what that belief really looked like. Truly, at a time, I was just ready to see Jesus. Then, even in healing, I was still doubting that beautiful changes could come into this life. I had to feel, and I had to be brought through the doubt, before I could tell this story.

I don’t know if this is true for you, but I grew up thinking that Christian fiction had to be rather…one-note? As if writing it meant that we could never tell a truly unique story. What I have learned is that - while, in terms of doctrine, we must align ourselves with the unchanging truth of God’s word - there is more richness in his truth than I had once known there to be. We have the opportunity to unpack what it really means to follow God. The only way that we will ever be able to do that is to grow in relationship with him, and to continue to study what his word says. For every testimony he builds in us, he teaches us who he is, and for every Scripture we cling to, we can bring a new understanding and even a new love for him to the things which fill our pages.

Ultimately, alongside and above any literary training or experiential knowledge, we must have the power of the Holy Spirit, guiding us through it all, and reaching out to those who will receive what he leads us to author. Christian, we have a relationship with Jesus. Let’s ask our God what he wants us to write.

See, the things that we create are not just for us. There are people out there who have not healed the way you have. There are people who don’t know that he is the way out of the darkness - that he is not only the way, but the truth, and the life (John 14:6). There souls who are looking for their Savior - and their are souls who have found him, but who are still flailing atop a stormy sea, looking to grab ahold of him in the chaos. They don’t know how to yet. And the only reason you do? You’ve felt your ankles sinking into the water, and you’ve felt him snatch you up. You can walk someone through doubt, anxiety, heartbreak, and hope - only because he walked you through first.

If you’re not there yet, I am asking you to believe that he can bring you over to the other side - to trust that he can pull your head above water. He knows what he’s doing. And as he brings you to the safety of himself, you will be able to point others to him. You will be able to comfort others with the comfort you yourself have received from God.

”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Thanks for reading, RBRN Crew. We love and appreciate each one of you.

- Cana Grace Bartlett