Into the Fire

I don’t know why the Lord created me with such single-mindedness. There are really only three main things that have been in my life since as far back as I can remember. The first of those was horses. Yes, I was one of those horse crazy little girls that never grew out of it because God intended to use this love in multiple ways for many purposes beyond and besides career. The second major area was writing. It was a constant as I was growing up. On many a summer day one friend and I sat in self-constructed blanket tents writing stories, novels . . . The third thread is less defined but a constant nevertheless—it being the love and appreciation for good drama, acting, movies.

I think learning the craft of writing is twofold. Good education and good teachers, whether it be at home or in a school is essential to learning the basics of grammar, the relationship of words, opinions, writing stories, and the nuances of creating in the written form. But side by side with that education is the gleaned experience of creativity by reading. It’s easy to tell if someone attempts to write fiction without being much of a reader. Usually, the essence of story—meaningful characters with depths all their own, a plot which weaves and struts and mesmerizes, a charismatic style, and a voice that charms or alarms or challenges or amuses—these things are all missing. It’s relatively easy to learn the mechanics of writing, but I doubt one can truly “learn” the emotion of creating a story. I believe it is God-ordained, a gift, a talent, a certain innate stamp which God engineers in our genes and step-by-step fashions within us to pursue. No matter what. With no guarantees or promises or dangling carrots. But rather the compulsion to obey His call upon us, to write regardless of what it costs us, of what it requires from us, of what we receive from it. The simple fact is that we must write. So write we do.

For a young girl to love horses is not unusual. So many do. I was a city girl who fell in love with them from before the age of four. When I was four, I rode my first horse somewhere near Butte, Montana, where my long-distance relatives lived. It was a dream come true. That was phase one being confirmed. It was many years later, 16 years to be exact, before phase two kicked in at the now defunct Longacres Racetrack. Another dream fulfilled.

In between phase one and phase two with the horse thing came a lot of intermittent writing, never completely disappearing, blending into a playwriting class in my one year at the university along with a creative writing class and lots of English and literature classes crammed into that full year. And even during the years of “wild-life”, writing never went away, surfacing occasionally to assert its clamp onto my life.

And inserted into the chaos of those years at the track, after the wild part had dissipated and ultimately been rejected—after all that came the Lord Jesus Christ. Simply, profoundly, and with a quiet power: He rescued me. And eventually my husband. The racetrack life continued with a new purpose, a ministry, a son, and years and years of very hard work.

As the Lord often does, He brings things full circle, or intertwines all things, or ties up loose ends, completing His intentions . . . Anyway, when I had learned who was truly responsible for any good thing that I might have done or would do, He gave me an assignment to write. “A Christian novel about horse racing” were His exact words. So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote that story until I finished it. Then we published it. And now we wait for whatever fruit might come from the labor. The book is used as ministry—it was a gift to me, and I give it to others with joy. And I am thankful to the Lord that He gave me the story, the many characters, the collage of racing captured within the multiple pages of that first effort at a novel. There have been six to follow that one. Book 8 is in the works.

Horses. And writing. In that order.

Well, you know what’s left. The drama. It could be said I’ve had enough drama in my life to last my lifetime, but who knows what the Lord has in store? I’ve always wanted to write my novels to make them like “reading” a movie. What if . . .

First things first, you know?

Father, thank you for my life. You’ve been so gracious to me. Yes, even when I was at my worst, you loved me, even protected me. I am so thankful to you. I love you, Jesus, thank you for loving me. “You’re all I’m livin’ for.” In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

*Please remember Kristy Dykes and her family.*