The Flog – The Fabry Log

Words are powerful. They can hurt or heal. They are treasures in each heart and we dare not keep them to ourselves.

After Under a Cloudless Sky was published early in 2018, I started getting feedback about the story, the themes in the pages, the characters and how real they seemed, and what the story whispered to readers.

There was one note that stood out to me. A friend mentioned that his daughter liked my writing, and I sent her a copy. A few days later I received a card with writing on the front and back and around the printing. A handwritten note is the best kind because you get to see the flow of a person's thoughts. You see their heart in the ink.

She thanked me for the gift and said some wonderful things, but let me pull out two specific quotes.

"I feel like you're becoming a better writer with each book you write."

Oh, how that spoke to me. It's my goal to write better, deeper, more clearly, more heartfelt stories with each book. But there is such fear in starting a new project and so many whispers of, "No one will read this. You're a hack. You don't know what you're doing. Why don't you give up?" Those whispers, at times, become shouts and I've learned not to try to silence them but to listen carefully. The shouts are the fears of every writer. The shouts want to silence the good thing coming out. The shouts want to shut down, so if I listen to them and acknowledge them, I can nod, say "Thanks for your input," and get back to work. That's why this sentence in the note meant so much. Someone else on the other end of the process was moved and responded.

Later in the note the writer said, "I copied some June Bug quotes into my journal, and they were really timely."

June Bug is a story I wrote ten years ago in one of the most difficult seasons of my family's life. To know that in that struggle I had put something on the page that this reader identified with enough to write in her journal blew me away.

One more. She wrote, "If I may say so, I believe Jesus is really pleased with you, as well. You delight Him."

I looked at those sentences and smiled, shook my head, and thought, "She doesn't know me very well." I'm selfish and self-centered and sinful. Then I stopped and wondered, What if she's right? What if Jesus really is delighted in who I am. Who He's making me. What if He bases His delight not on my performance or my "getting better," but in who I am in Him?

And what if He feels that way about you? What if you allow Him to delight in you today? What if you are able to acknowledge the truth about your sin, but also hold tightly to the truth that "He who started a good work in you will be faithful to complete it?" What if I choose to see myself from His perspective and agree with how He feels about me instead of how I feel about myself most of the time?

That will not only make me a better writer, it will make me a better husband, father, neighbor, friend. It will also help me see others in light of this truth.

There is great power in words to heal and propel. They are jewels, precious ointment waiting to be poured out for ourselves and others. What will you do with your words today?

What is your secret?

We all have one. We all have something buried on the top of some hill of the past. Our great hope is that the secret will stay buried. Unseen. Dormant.

A secret unsettles us. There is no grave marker for the secret because we do not wish to remember. We want to forget.

The reason there is no stone above the buried secret is because we do not need one. We remember too well.

But what if the secret of your life is there not to haunt or shackle, but to redeem? What if the secret, buried deep, is the path to freedom? And what if the key to living an abundant life, the key to unlocking the door to your heart to redemption and reunion and a peace you have never known, lies in revealing the secret?

This is one of the big questions in the novel I've written—and this is release month, which doesn't mean much to anyone but the author and the publisher and a few friends who care. There's a lot going on in the world and a book about two little girls in a coal town in West Virginia in the 1930s, and then an old woman with a secret in 2004—well, trust me, it's an uphill battle to get something like that seen or noticed. A lot of other news is making a bigger splash.

But here's what I've come to understand after writing dozens of stories. Under a Cloudless Sky is my 80th published book, and I could not be more convinced of the power of a story than I am right now. Because a story well-told can get underneath the surface of your life and burrow so deeply that it can, at the same time, show you yourself and show you the path to real life.

My Secret

I've never done this. I've never had such a compulsion about a character as I had with Juniper and Hollis Beasley. They are "minor" characters in the novel, at least they were supposed to be. But the more I wrote about them, the more they took over the story. And as I wrote them, they became more defined, and I saw two Hollywood actors in my head playing them.

I've done this through the years, find a face, find a person who looks like a character in my novel and allow their smiles or frowns or voice to aid me. But this was different. I could see and hear them on the screen of my novel. And as much as I tried, I couldn't push their faces and voices from the dialog and narrative.

I mentioned to Karen, my publishing confidant (or editor, if you prefer), and she said, "Why don't you send the novel to one of the actors?"

So I did. Again, it was an act of hubris on my part to think that something I had written would even be seen by an A-list actor. But I found an address and mailed it. I've received no response yet, but that's not the point. If you don't believe in your story, you'll never risk. And if you don't believe in the power of your story, you'll never become vulnerable to that story. And if you allow the secret of your life to shackle you, you will never move past the fear and into a life of trust and belief.

I would love to hear who you think would play the parts of Hollis and Juniper best. I hope you pick up a copy of this story that's very close to my heart for a number of reasons.