Writing Black, Writing Christian: Spiritual Warfare

So this morning, I was wandering around the blogosphere and stopped at Brandilyn Collins' Forensics and Faith blog. This week she's been discussing spiritual warfare and how it affects God-given writers into doing nothing.

Sounds like me and maybe some other writers out there, who don't think their writing is strong enough, their message is Godly enough. People who suffer from migraines, job stress, family obligations, financial woes, physical challenges, kindergarteners:) and what ever else that for some reason creaped up the moment they felt their writer's mission rise up out of their bones.

I pray for our deliverance. I pray that God sends his angel of Courage to lift us up. I pray that we put on the whole armor of God and get over ourselves.

My character, Angelina Crawford, is a strong woman with too many skeletons in her closet to locate her spiritual gift. And now she needs it or she'll lose her daughter to the evil she's been running away from all her life.

Don't we run from our calling until we have no choice to do what we were meant to do? Our life will stop, if we don't. I've interviewed many ministers, musicians, holy hip hoppers who share my sentiment. So I know I have an Amen out there somewhere.

What does that mean for you?

My great grandma was an Easter Star and sat on our church's Mother Board. And every third Sunday she would sing this song before our devotion service: I'm gonna run on to see what the end' gon be.

This song meant a great deal to my tiny family church in Lake Park, Georgia. See. Our churches. Our people-Black Seminoles--had lived in those swamp patches for years before the town was established. Hiding out. Living free. So running on to see what the end gon' be was their motivation, their reason for running from Jones plantation up in Hahira and St. John's river down in Jacksonville. They knew that if they kept on running, they would find freedom. A new life. A better life. So my great grandmother sang that sung and the church would vibrate despite her petite frame. Can you feel the pews vibrate under your seat? The floorboards clank against your feet? And the altar scuffle a bit to the left? And the moaning? The angels holding that little old church together? She'd belt out all our history and our longing and a promise God gave to us all. And her voice vibrated until souls felt at peace, souls felt like they could make it one more day, souls could keep on with their tedious journey. Because...

We were and are free.

Whatever holds us down. It won't matter. We are free, people.

Whatever story sits in the middle of your chest, aching to be told. It is free.

Whatever publishing disappointment, rejection letter, writer's block that toils with your spirit. Let it break free. It has no choice.

So I'm gonna write on to see what the end gon' be.

You feel me.

Writing to see what the end's gon' be,
Dee