Dipping the Quill Deeper: A Writer Who is a Christian or a Christian Writer

by Eva Marie Everson

Lately I’ve struggled with something personal. A thought, really. One that the enemy brought up, I know, to confuse and confound me … to slide a tentacle up and around my throat ever-so-gently … almost unnoticeably … until time to squeeze.

And the squeezing has caused me to question. To wonder. To try to figure out, on my own, whether or not I am who I say I am, namely a writer. More directly, a Christian writer. Or, a writer who is a Christian. 

I do not doubt my Christianity. That I am a follower of Christ is without question. That I know Him … worship Him … want to be more like Him, I do not have to wonder about. I also do not doubt that I am a writer. For one, I’m published. My works have won numerous awards for pity’s sake. For another, I write and, therefore, I am a writer. It’s kind of like the “I think therefore I am …” quote first used by Rene Descartes, which means (according to reference.com) that thinking cannot be faked. Neither can writing. If that’s a pen in your hand (or a keyboard at your fingertips), and you are spilling ink onto paper (or pixels onto a document), then you are a writer.

But, am I a Christian writer or a writer who is a Christian? Am I worthy of the first? Or am I trying to simplify the latter?

Years ago, after my mother’s unexpected passing from this life to the eternal, I found a book she had been teaching from. An old book, but one with truths that appear timeless. God’s Psychiatry, by Charles L. Allen, published by Fleming H. Revell Company in 1953 (I had to use my old skills of translating Roman numerals to know this), is a look at the 23rd Psalm, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Beatitudes. 

I wasn’t as interested in the words by Reverend Allen as I was in the notes Mother had made in the margins. I spent weeks upon weeks reading them. Writing them down. Studying them. What had made her zero in on these particular words, for example, rather than those? But for years now, that book has been left unopened on my desk.

Until … the struggle began, and a sweet voice called to my spirit saying, “Find that book.” It took a while. Gracious, it was right under my nose, but I’d set another book on top of it, and I’d only focused on that book rather than the one I sought. (There’s a sermon in there, if you’ll look for it.)

I opened the book to the first page, titled The Healing of Mind and Soul. On the second page of Reverend Allen’s narrative, my mother had penciled in these words: train mind, teach the truth, wrong thoughts are sick mind. Next to it, she had underlined Allen’s A mind which thinks error is a sick mind. 

I felt a jolt. Had I been thinking in error? Had I allowed the enemy to confuse the issue of being a Christian writer and a writer who is a Christian? Had I allowed—haveI allowed—my mind to become sick? 

Seek truth and know truth … Mother had circled. And so I have. And I have tried to stop my thoughts from running amuck when it comes to this question. If, as a Christian, I write truths not necessarily Christian-Literature-bookshelf-bound, are the truths any less so? Am I any less a Christian? Or am I daring to walk away from the choir and go into the world? To share a story I know it will understand. Furthermore, were the words Jesus spoke along the way or in the marketplace or on a hillside any less impactful or powerful than those He spoke in the synagogue? 

What say you?

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Dipping the Quill Deeper: Writer Who is a Christian or a A Christian Writer from Eva Marie Everson on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Eva Marie Everson is the CEO of Word Weavers International, the director of Florida Christian Writers Conference, and the contest director for Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. She is the multiple award-winning author of more than 40 books and countless articles and blogposts. She is also an award-winning speaker and a Bible teacher and the most recent recipient of the AWSA Lifetime Achievement Award (2022). 

Eva Marie is often seen at writers conferences across the States. She served as a mentor for the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild and taught as a guest professor at Taylor University in 2011. She and her husband make their home in Central Florida where they enjoy their grandchildren. They are owned by one persnickety cat named Vanessa.

Eva Marie's latest book, THE THIRD PATH, takes a look at 26 of the questions God asked in the Bible, then makes them personal to the reader. The premise of the book is currently her most asked for continuing workshop at writers conferences.