Josie, the main character in The Secret Place, often wishes for a “do-over.”
The Secret Place was originally set to take place in the fall of 2020, along Oregon’s majestic McKenzie River. Then in came 2020 like Freddy Krueger. If ever a year needed a do-over, that was the one. Covid-19 changed life as we knew it. And to compound things for my little book, a state-wide outbreak of wildfires destroyed numerous parts of Oregon, including communities along the McKenzie river valley—on the exact same date and at the same place where my story was supposed to happen.
So as the time to publish the book approached, my choices were to either edit the story to include all the harsh realities of 2020—which would have made for a horrific tale. I couldn’t do it, and nobody I knew wanted to read that.
Or I could have left the story as originally written without the harsh realities actually taking place on the dates noted in the book, which would have meant skipping along through 2020 pretending as if a pandemic, riots, and devastating fires never happened. Which would have been a heartless display of indifference to all the people who suffered so much.
I couldn’t do that, either. So as the book was preparing to go to press, I bumped the story year back to 2019 (pre-covid & pre-fires), and adjusted all the dated backstory to match. And because of Libby’s journals, there was a LOT of dated backstory to edit.
If only we could do that in real life. Just edit the date and go back to a kinder time, back to the way things were before the world drastically changed. I wonder if people who lived through world wars longed for such a do-over? Why can’t we go back to the way life was before all this devastation? Why do we have to know firsthand about pain and hate and grief and PTSD and carry around permanent physical and emotional scars? Why do we have to find new ways to explain to our little ones about grief and anger and sickness and dangers in the world?
Those who have lived through world wars must have come through changed, they’d have had no choice. Likewise, we can’t come through trials unchanged. We usually have no control over difficult or trying circumstances. But we can control the way we respond to them. We can always choose anger and put up resistance, or we can let trials make us stronger. We can allow God to purify our hearts, our goals, and our values. We can choose to let pointless, temporal stuff to burn off and leave us packing light, determined, ready to follow him unhindered by useless weight and needless baggage from stuff in life that won’t be going into eternity with us. We can choose to focus on what matters in the bigger picture of God’s master plan. We can choose to let go of anything we worship or cling to that isn’t God.
This is an excerpt of a text exchange from The Secret Place, when Will was on a break from battling a forest fire:
Will – 10:45 p.m. I saw a beautiful creature in the middle of all this destruction. I held my breath, not wanting to scare it away, wondering how she could be there after fire has ravaged the land, and it hit me … Even though forest fire destroys so much, it can’t destroy the beauty and the power of life that God set in motion when he created all this … It’ll take time, but the forest will heal. The trees and the wild huckleberry will grow back, and the deer and beaver and bear will return, and the damage that was done will become nothing more than a distant memory.
Josie – 10:46 p.m. WOW. So beautiful. That you can see the potential for new life and beauty and goodness in spite of the devastation and the danger you’re dealing with right now.
Will – 10:46 p.m. What I see is YOU. You chose to pick up the pieces and make something good from your life. You remind me that beauty can come from ashes.
The Secret Place, ch 28
How you achieve strength from trial is up to you. I am only as strong as my weakest moment, so the only hope for me is in knowing that I have been promised an eternal future free of pain, suffering, and strife, and that promise comes from the One who is faithful without fail, who by his mercy lives inside me, who kindly picks me up when I fall and who carries me when I am weak. One who is undaunted by evil and unshaken by destruction. One who sees and cares.
One who has a plan. A good, perfect, forever plan. And he is determined to see it through.
My hope is entirely in Christ, not in me, no way. I am weak, but his word says that when I am weak, he is strong.
…But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Corinthians 1:8-9
His strength shows up in my weakness. When I am broken, when I am scared, when I am sick or faithless or shaken, he is steadfast, faithful, and strong.
This broken world is not going to last forever, and it is not our forever home. A glorious new earth is part of his master plan, and it’s coming soon. All sorrow and darkness will be no more. My hope is on the horizon. My job, my response to storms and trials is to keep my eyes on Jesus and point him out to those who can’t see beyond the haze rising from the rubble.
Q: How are you holding up on the backside of 2020? Where do you place your hope?
Camille Eide
Along The Banks 