The following post is reprinted with the permission of Carol Pratt Bradley from her website/blog carolprattbradley.com. Carol is the author of four historical novels published by WiDo.
In the summer of 2007, I wrote the initial draft for what became my first novel, Light of the Candle. Thirteen years ago. After it was published in early 2015, I realized at last why I wrote that book. In exploring the story of Daniel and Sarai, I was searching for what it means to keep on going when life tears up your dreams and nothing makes sense.
Now it seems like we stand in the middle of a tsunami of events that do not make any sense at all to me. Uncertainty and strife seem to rule the days and I wonder when or if it will end. I admit to feeling beat up and low sometimes. A few nights ago, I lay in the dark in a state of anxiousness that would not loosen its hold. I kept having the thought to get out my first novel and read.
Here is a
bit of what I found: “Sarai looked up at the sky, turning navy in the twilight. Father tells me that someday I will be able to see clearly and make sense of all that has happened. I keep waiting for that day. It feels very far away…..But there have been a few moments. I felt once a kind of stillness come inside of me, a feeling that all would be well…..Perhaps you will think me foolish, but I think what spoke to me are the days still to come. In that moment, I could sense them hanging in the air. I felt as if I could reach out and touch them, but they were just beyond my reach.”
I paused on those words, staring at them on the page. I was trying to express in words what it is to hope. It felt as though someone else had written them. Not me. In a sense, that sentiment is true. My younger self wrote it, someone with less experience, but more wise than I feel in this moment, now that I have seen and experienced more of the uncertainties and injustices that exist. Is this what comes as one moves on past youth and mid-life? I thought that in my sixth decade of living I would somehow be all insightful and discerning, a sage. Such an immature notion makes me laugh. The accumulation of years does not necessarily bring insight, I’ve learned, but can increase your feelings of vulnerability. To be vulnerable, according to Merriam-Webster, is to know one is capable of being wounded, open to attack.
I’ve always needed to believe that good triumphs. I’ve rooted for the underdog, skipped to the end of a book so I know that somehow, amid all of the opposition, there exists a happy ending. What I want to feel now is the hope expressed in my first book, Light of the Candle. The future reaching out to us, beckoning us to take a step forward, then another and another. Toward the good days, the happy endings, that feel just out of reach. I have felt this in challenging time before, so why should I not feel assured that it will be so again? The stillness is there, the feeling that all will yet be well. Good days sure to come.