{"id":1248,"date":"2022-05-09T19:08:58","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T19:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/?p=1248"},"modified":"2022-09-16T19:21:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T19:21:36","slug":"a-spirit-of-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/09\/a-spirit-of-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Spirit of Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you have read all or even just some of my books, you may have wondered, why does this author like to push boundaries?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask myself the same question. I worry over every book, asking is this too much? Is this going to offend someone? Are readers going to misjudge me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, yes, it happens. Sometimes I\u2019m misunderstood. While it\u2019s hard, it\u2019s not going to change the way I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write characters with messy pasts. Some even have messy presents. I don\u2019t shy away from the details while also making efforts to be tasteful. Because this is real life. Like Jesus told the Pharisees, he didn\u2019t come to save the righteous. They didn\u2019t need him. He came to save the sinful. That\u2019s what my stories are about at their very essence: redemption. Saved from sin. Oh, yes, I twine this with a beautiful, moving love story and plenty of tantalizing kisses, but I can\u2019t take Jesus out of my books. It would render the story massively incomplete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of my characters have had major sexual mess-ups in their past. Some are plagued by negligent choices. Some can never quite believe in the reality of God even though they claim to be Christian. Some have\u2026hurt others. Emotionally. Even physically. *Gasp* I\u2019m struggling right now with my main male character in The Promise of Picnics. He\u2019s a pastor now, but in the past, he was violent. Violent, people! And I wonder, can my readers forgive him<\/em>? I know God can\u2026but can YOU?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my book A New Shade of Paint<\/em>, my main character\u2019s father is not a nice man. I made him so intentionally to show how difficult it is for Shannon to forgive him. And I\u2019ve been criticized for not calling him out as abusive. That is, apparently, a deal-breaker for some. That I have an abusive character, I don\u2019t label it, and my main character has the audacity to forgive someone who has abused her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes me sad. Is abuse okay? Is violence okay? No, absolutely never. But neither is cherishing a spirit of unforgiveness against those whose sins seem the grossest to us. Neither is wanting someone who has hurt another to be cut off, to be hurt because they \u201cdeserve it.\u201d That story I wrote is specifically about forgiveness\u2014when it is unwarranted. Undeserved. Unnatural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way God forgives us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Oh, and that abusive character? He changes. Completely. He sees his need to change and that God can forgive him\u2014because his daughter forgave him. And I guess that\u2019s not what people want. They want him to\u2026suffer. Ick.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve noticed a movement of late that deeply concerns me, especially among Christians. We have developed two classes of sins: acceptable sins and unacceptable sins. Which sins fall into which category may vary by person, but whoever falls into the unacceptable category\u2014they\u2019re done. FOREVER. The attitude is pretty much they should burn in hell for what they did. Did they kill someone? Did they rape someone? Wait, can a person be forgiven for rape??? <\/em>Can a person be forgiven for abuse? For racism and discrimination? The list could go on. Think of anything that can get a person \u201ccanceled\u201d in today\u2019s society. Are these forgivable wrongs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YES. The Bible makes it clear there is one and only one sin that is unforgivable, and this is the rejection of the Holy Spirit. Deciding once and for all not to be a follower of Christ. ANY OTHER SIN *IF CONFESSED* IS FORGIVABLE by God. And if God will forgive it, who are we, lowly sinful humans, to say it\u2019s not forgivable to us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that destroys me about cancel culture is that no man can truly cancel another. Only God can cancel us\u2014and He doesn\u2019t. <\/em>Because He is our creator, and even the ones who mess up in the very worst of ways, breaking God\u2019s heart in the process, are His creation\u2014and He loves them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus died on the cross, He took the sin of all humanity upon Himself\u2014even the vilest sin you can think of. And when He rose again on the third day, He conquered those sins, freely offering forgiveness and eternity to anyone<\/em> who confesses and forsakes their sin\u2014no matter what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God has power over death. He has power over sin. He has the power to transform lives from utter misery, disgust, and heartbreak\u2014into beauty, love, and holiness. He has the power to take brokenness of any shape and size and color and make it whole again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that <\/em>is why I write what I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I challenge you to ask God to give you a spirit of forgiveness and to instill in you His eyes to see others the way He does\u2014as broken people with all the potential to be made perfectly whole in Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have read all or even just some of my books, you may have wondered, why does this author like to push boundaries? I ask myself the same question. I worry over every book, asking is this too much? Is this going to offend someone? Are readers going to misjudge me? And, yes, it … Continue reading “A Spirit of Forgiveness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"emilydana87@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/author\/emilydana87gmail-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":15,"uagb_excerpt":"If you have read all or even just some of my books, you may have wondered, why does this author like to push boundaries? I ask myself the same question. I worry over every book, asking is this too much? Is this going to offend someone? Are readers going to misjudge me? And, yes, it…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1297,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilydanabotrous.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}