Lee Stephen

The website of author Lee Stephen

Christianity

By

On the Sparrow

As some people may or may not know, I grapple with aspects of faith. I’m a skeptic, a doubter, by nature. I’d probably make a great atheist. I may be unique among Christians in that I think doubt can be a powerful and positive thing. I would encourage any Christian to doubt their salvation, or that the Bible is true, or that Christ even existed at all, let alone rose from the dead. Doubt everything. Ask the tough questions. Ask the questions other Christians don’t want you to ask. How could God order the Israelites to slaughter babies? Is God capable of hatred, and if not, how could He claim to “hate” Esau? And if he hated Esau, and if hate is a sin, can God sin? Moses was described as the most humble person on the planet…by Moses. Could that have been a little personal embellishment, and if so, where else does that exist? (looking at you, “disciple that Jesus loved!”)

If Christianity hadn’t been taught to you, and you had just picked a Bible up…would you believe any of this nonsense? And don’t pretend it’s not nonsense. If I showed up at church one day and someone asked how my week was, and I told them, “It was fine. I got swallowed by a alligator and it spit me out in Chalmette,” what would you say? Nonsense. If someone asked how home life was, and I said, “Jake (our dog) was bad this week, but when I tried to punish him, he started talking and we had a conversation about it,” what would your reaction be? Nonsense. The Bible believing faithful reading this should be able to pick up on the symbolism there.

A wise person once said that if you question your beliefs, one of two things will happen: you’ll either change your view, or your current view will be strengthened. On the contrary, whoever said, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it,” probably wasn’t thinking it all the way through. At no point in scripture does God advise blind ignorance. It’s quite the opposite.

1 Thessalonians 5:21: Test all things.

1 John 4:1: Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, that they are from God.

These are just two examples, but there are more. So follow the Bible’s teachings, faithful, and start testing things! The path of doubt is for the few and the brave.

Why am I harping on all of this? Because it has been during my greatest moments of doubt – my greatest moments of, “What the hell, God?” – that He has given me answers that defy coincidence and rock me to the core. And it makes sense. To ask God for explanations is to seek, and if you seek, you will find. To seek means to actively search, not to sit back and believe for the sake of believing. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

I’ve had three true, “Wow, God,” moments in my life, two of which came from sheer doubt and one of which was just unexpected. The first had to do with ants, and I am only just now realizing that it’s not on this blog, but on a Facebook note I wrote back in 2009…so I’ll have to post it here sometime soon. The unexpected one had to do with Lowe’s. Yes, the store, and no, I haven’t written about that one anywhere (but I sure will now). The third, and subsequently the subject of this entry, happened today. As in a few hours ago. So let’s begin.

When I got home from work, my wife said Jake was sniffing something in the back yard that looked like a broken egg. I went outside with a shovel. It was a broken egg. I picked it up with the shovel and chunked it over the fence. I Googled what kind of egg it was. It was a sparrow egg. I went outside the fence to find it. I couldn’t find it. I found turtle eggs. This series of events shook my soul.

That’s the gist. Here come the details.

Today, a dear friend of mine from Louisiana College was laid to rest. She was 31 years old, the life of every room she walked into, and a faithful believer in Christ. In learning of her passing, I also learned of another dear college friend who passed away. He was also young, and he was also a Christian warrior. Prayers had been lifted up for them both. Praises to God were shared. “Three or more” were gathered. Both passed away, anyway. Did God not hear? Did He not care? How could he extinguish two lives lived for him, without rhyme or reason, so terribly, terribly soon? Do we even matter to Him? Doubt.

This was the conversation I had with myself (and God) on my way back to work, where I finished a 12-hour shift then returned home. For contextual purposes, you need to understand that this is all taking place during a period of intense doubt in my life as to the things of Heaven. Intense doubt. “Why do I believe any of this?” doubt.

Good, good, good doubt.

When I arrived home, my wife told me about the egg. I didn’t think anything of it; I just filed it down as “one of them things.” I went outside, shoveled the thing over the fence, then went inside to look it up out of curiosity. Sitting on my couch, I Googled the small, brown, speckled egg. It was easy to identify. It was the egg of a sparrow.

Okay…hold on…

My brain was searching through decades of Sunday School lessons.

…his eye is on the sparrow…

Matthew 10:29-31.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

I sat back on the sofa and just stared. He answered my question. Not with someone saying a verse, or with a sense of tired resignation. With a verse coming to me. An egg has never fallen from a tree in our yard before. But today, a sparrow egg did. Just in time for Jake to find it, just in time for me to get home. Just in time to give me an answer that I would comprehend…a personal, made-for-me answer, based on the book I had been struggling with. A little bit of, “It’s okay, Lee. Just keep reading and believing.” The encouragement I needed.

My dear friends from college passed away for a purpose. God was not looking at their lives lightly. He timed the fall of a sparrow egg so perfectly…how much more did he care about their passing? Too soon, it may have seemed to us. But it was exactly when it needed to be for a plan we happen to not be privy to. How incredibly much God loved them to care so much about when they came to Him. Doubt removed.

I got up off the sofa, telling my wife I needed to go outside for a while just to walk, as God was saying something to me. I distinctly said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going digging for turtle eggs (something I love to do!).” I walked outside, looking at those verses in Matthew on my iPhone. I decided to see if I could find the egg I threw over the fence. So I walked over to where I tossed it.

I found turtle eggs.

Okay, God, what the heck?

There was a lesson in that, too, and another loud and clear message from above. “Don’t think you know what is or isn’t coming – this is My plan, not yours.” Relinquish concern. Just move. Don’t be pessimistic. God knows the desires of your heart. He knew, more than anything, I want to find turtle eggs in my yard right now. He used this moment to show me some. The eggs were broken – they’d recently hatched – but that didn’t matter. The lesson was the same. Doubt removed.

But I hadn’t gone to the fence to find turtle eggs, did I? I went to find that sparrow egg. That little miracle message, from God to me. And I could not find it anywhere. I walked. I crawled. I dug through the grass. I had tossed it right there. How could it completely vanish? There was no physical evidence to corroborate my story. There was no egg to show someone and say, “this was the egg!” The power of this story was not in tangible things I could put my fingers on…it was in my testimony. I would be asking people to believe what had happened by faith.

In a series of sudden, left-right-left-right spiritual jabs, God saved the most powerful for last. “Some things, Lee, you won’t be able to prove with evidence. You just have to believe.” Like a certain book He just referred me to that talks about sparrows. Doubt obliterated.

Nonsense? Maybe to those who weren’t there. Maybe for those without the right context, or who have never experienced such things before. Maybe to the casual observer. But for me? Well…God said it. I believe it. That settles it.

Doubt is not the enemy of faith. It’s the breeder of certainty. Sometimes, we just need a little, “God, I’m having a hard time believing this…please explain it to me,” in our lives. Sometimes a little doubt is all it takes to truly believe.

My wife encouraged me to write this entry tonight so that I wouldn’t forget the details, and I’m glad she did. It wasn’t exactly an Epic-related entry, but that’s all right. A time for Epic will return. For the time being…I’m going to enjoy my strengthened faith.

Till next time!

By

My Life in Christ

If you’ve read any of Epic whatsoever, whether it’s the entire series so far or the first handful of chapters in Dawn of Destiny, you’ve undoubtedly come away with the realization that I write from a perspective of faith, specifically, Christianity. Though I never profess Epic to be a Christian series (for those curious, it isn’t), my experiences with Christianity no doubt shines through on a number of occasions, be it through the thoughts of the protagonist – a struggling man of faith – or the events that unfold around the rest of the cast. At the end of this Easter Sunday, I am prompted to reflect back on how my life has been as a follower of Christ.

Though I’m far from an in-your-facer or a Bible-thumper, I don’t shy from spiritual discussion. My testimony is easy to find, and I mention it in the author biography of every novel I publish. On numerous occasions, I’ve gone back to reread it with the intent of updating it or tweaking it to make it sound more “polished.” But in every attempt, I’ve come back with the realization that it was written exactly how it was meant to be written, in a way far more mature than the author was at the time of its writing, a fact that only serves to reinforce to me that the words weren’t my own to begin with. And so in all of these years that it’s been available online for others to read, it remains unchanged from the first day it was posted.

One of the greatest struggles a follower of Christ faces is putting into words exactly what being a follower of Christ means – and by that, I mean inwardly. On the outside, most of us follow the modern commandments of, “Thou shalt not curse, thou shalt listen only to Christian music, and thou must answer every ‘how are you?’ question with ‘fine!’ since you’re a Christian and that’s how things should be.” All too often our walks as Christians get muddled in the exterior, where we try to cover up our dented chassis with fresh coats of paint and those scented hangie-things that make our front seats smell like pine trees. More often than not, our outward appearances are lies. We’re not perfect, either.

But the inward reality is the one that counts, for it is in the expression of this reality that we find our testimonies – our witness to the amazing change that accompanies one’s decision to surrender their life to Jesus Christ. Perhaps no one captured that inward reality in better words than the Apostle Paul, who said things such as, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway,” and “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” Or in layman’s terms, “The Christian life is very, very, very hard.”

Hard, but so worth it.

One of the first things I always say when attempting to express the essence of Christianity is, “Don’t judge it by looking at Christians.” In our culture of comfort, conformity, and political correctness, we’ve lost a great deal of the groundedness that our forerunners, such as the Apostle Paul and the other men of the New Testament, gained through lives of difficulty and persecution. We’re spoiled. We want to be liked. So we opt to stay in out comfort zones and not offend. After all, it’s a nice thought to say that everyone gets to Heaven in the end, right?

If you’re waiting for me to tack on to the end of that last statement something like, “But we know that’s not true,” don’t worry. As much as any amount of spiritual truth that I know, I also know that statements like that, for purposes like these, aren’t going to convince anyone. And I’m not trying to convince anyone. That’s not my job. God has more powerful forces than me to evoke senses of incompleteness and conviction. So here’s what I’ll say:

The words in my testimony were true then, and they remain true now. Every single one of them. Accepting Christ simply does something that cannot be explained, not in flowery words or pointed calculation. When you know Christ, you know God, and when you know God, you experience Him. I don’t mean in fleeting thoughts that could or not could be our own imaginations, or unexplainable “feelings” that prompt us to do things that we wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m talking about in real, tangible, “Wow” moments. Moments that aren’t the conjurations of our overactive imaginations, or coincidences that we try desperately to pawn off as God’s will miraculously revealing itself. I mean direct communication. Seeing things that should not be seen – being led to places you should not go. No, I’m not talking about hallucinations. I’m talking about conversations that are as tangibly evident as any I’d have with a coworker or neighbor. A relationship that is unlike any other, in which both parties speak and are spoken to in ways that simple explanations will never do justice. The knowledge and awareness of a living God, living in you. It is something that to this day, with four novels under my belt and over two decades of writing experience, I still cannot put into words.

Those who count themselves among the body of Christ know what I’m talking about. And so I suppose that the culmination of this message is a simple statement intended for those who don’t. Those who don’t count themselves among followers of Christ, or of any organized religion, or of any anything. I am intelligent. I am a thinker. I was given a gift of creativity and rationalization, and I approach life, more or less, as a skeptic in most things. I even frequently test my own faith. To this day, I have never been left disappointed. And so I would say this to my fellow skeptics in the world, with whom I share a complete love, understanding, and empathy: don’t take my word for any of this. Don’t even take the Bible’s word.

I said this in my original testimony, and I’ll say it here again. There is zero – absolutely zero – harm in asking God to show Himself. To say, honestly, “God, I don’t believe in you, but if you’re up there, I’m open to your showing me.” But to truly ask it. To truly be open. To seek. And if you come back with no answers, well, I suppose that’s your answer. But I’m not worried about that. Because the God I commune with says, “Seek and you will find.” But you have to truly seek. Just give it a try. Humor Him, to humor me. Just be ready.

Just be ready.

As always, I love to hear back from people, especially as it pertains to spirituality (be it good or bad). A million emails about favorite characters can’t rival one from a person writing about their faith experience. Those tend to put everything in perspective. And sometimes, we could all use a little perspective – and a small step of faith. I’d love to hear about yours.

By

Cancer Update

I had intended to use this entry as the first installment of my The Next Big Thing casting series, but being that my first big follow-up with the doctor was today concerning my mycosis fungoides diagnosis, I thought this entry would be better served letting people know how I was doing.

There’s good news, and there’s news that’s still not necessarily bad, but nonetheless not fun. First, the good news! The treatments I’ve been taking have been working very, very well, and there’s no reason to believe that this cancer won’t be defeated entirely. As I’d mentioned in the first entry, mycosis fungoides is incurable unless caught very early. We believe that may have been the case with me. All signs are pointing to this thing being defeated entirely.

The not fun news is that I’ll still have to be on chemotherapy for at least 2-3 months. By far, chemo is the worst part of this process. Though it’s just a once-a-week pill (methotrexate, for those curious), it still has a flurry of cruddy side effects, including nausea, headaches, and dizziness. It’s definitely not a picker-upper, and I’ve already had to leave work once (and miss a day) because of it. But, if the pills are necessary, they’re just necessary. It’s a take-no-chances kind of thing. I will happily endure the side effects of chemo pills if it means wiping out this cancer for good. So like I said, it’s not fun news, but it’s not necessarily bad. It’s just part of the process.

There’s something else I want to touch on here, and it’s something that comes just as much from my wife as it does me. We have both been completely humbled, and completely floored by the amount of support we’ve received. I’m serious. It’s overwhelming. Since this diagnosis, we’ve had our grass cut, meals delivered, donations given, none of which we asked for. That doesn’t even take into account the incredible amount of prayers and well-wishes that have been sent our way. This has been completely amazing. From the outset, we’ve wanted to use this cancer in a positive way for others – I can honestly say, this has been a hugely positive development for us. The support we’ve seen given to us (for which we both feel undeserving) has been life-affecting. It makes us want to be better people. From the bottom of both our hearts, thank you.

I’m going to be fine. The big toll of this (chemo aside) has been purely emotional and psychological. I don’t “feel” this cancer. It doesn’t slow me down. It just lingers in my thoughts. It’s very sobering to come to grips with your own mortality at age thirty-one. Even though this isn’t a cancer that’s going to kill me, the question has often arisen in my brain, why was it it mycosis fungoides? What made it that and not pancreatic cancer, or advanced prostate, or something in my brain? Did I just draw a lucky straw? It makes you realize that as healthy as you think you are, life can pick you in a heartbeat. It can give you something you’ve never imagined and force you to deal with it. I’ve had the thought more than just a few times, “It’s great that I’ll beat this, but what might come next?” Those thoughts are poison, but hey, I’m human. The key is faith. I’m working on it. I’m getting there. The encouragement, prayers, and support I’ve received have gone a tremendous way in reminding us that enough though times are tough, we are never forsaken. We’re never not beloved by God. And that has been a gift far more valuable to us than any cancer could be detrimental.

So again, thank you all, so very, very, very much. This has been incredible. I look forward to enduring these next couple months and having this chapter of life behind me. Not forgotten. But behind me.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when the first of the The Next Big Thing casting entries gets posted! I’m excited about sharing these and about putting my mental focus somewhere else. It’s going to be fun.

By

The C-Word

I thought long and hard about whether to post an entry about this. Truth be told, there’s a part of me that still doesn’t want to. The problem with that is that I have no good reason for keeping it to myself, especially when there are people out there whom I know would want to know. This isn’t because I did anything wrong. Much as Type-1 diabetes picked my wife at age sixteen, this decided to pick me at thirty-one. So here goes.

This  past Tuesday, I got a phone call from my doctor informing me that I had cancer.

Before this goes any further, I feel like I have to say something. Whenever people see or hear that word, they immediately think the worst. Allow me to assure you: I am not going to die. The particular cancer I have is called mycosis fungoides, and it’s a type of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. It is extremely rare, only affecting five in every million people (for those who keep up with me on Facebook, my “I’m five in a million!” post will now make sense – that was typed literally as I was leaving the doctor’s office). Despite its name, mycosis fungoides is not fungal. It does, however, have some of the physical characteristics of a fungal infection, hence the name. I did put a link to its wikipedia page up there, but take my advice and resist the urge to look it up too in-depthly, because all it’s going to do is make you think, “Bull crap, Lee, you are going to die!” I’m not. The pictures of mycosis fungoides you’ll find on the internet are nothing – let me repeat, nothing – like what I have. I have several small patches that don’t look anything like the massive sores and lesions you’ll find if you look on Google images. I was fortunate enough to catch this very early, still in its infant stage. Typically, mycosis fungoides is incurable (but manageable), however we may have even discovered it early enough to wipe out entirely. That’s the prayer.

I took my first dose of pill-based chemotherapy on Wednesday, addition to being prescribed two potent steroid creams specifically geared toward this type of condition, which is strictly surface-based (in other words, this isn’t in my organs). In two weeks I have a follow-up, at which point I’ll know a lot more about how well the treatments are working. I believe they’ll work well, as I’ve already seen signs of significant improvement in less than a week of utilizing these creams. And obviously, the chemo will do its thing, too. For those wondering, no, I won’t be losing any hair. The only side effect I’ve felt to this point has been a headache that came the day after the pills, which are once-a-week pills.

There’s a chance, being what it is, that I may have to deal with this for the rest of my life. Though it can go into remission for 10+ years, unless it can be wiped out completely at the outset, it’s always there. Lurking. Waiting. Like a necrilid in the dark.

I put that last little bit in there for a reason. I’m still me. Is this depressing? Yeah. Is it stressful? Heck yeah. I feel about like you would if your doctor told you that you had cancer. But all things happen for a reason, and all things work for the glory of God. I have no clue what will happen, here. As confident as everyone is that this will be wiped out, there’s always a chance it won’t be. That’s life. But I was never in control of life, anyway. As a writer, I can put Scott Remington, and Svetlana, and Jayden, and Esther through terrible things. I can pretty much wreck their lives. But I can do this because I, unlike them, know what the next pages hold. I know chapters that are books away that they can’t even begin to see in the midst of their crisis. And I know, because I love them, that they’re going to be okay. That trials will make them better. That though none of them are guaranteed smooth sailing or even survival, I will never forsake them, because they are mine. If I, the wretched sinner than I am, can feel this way about characters I made up, how much vastly greater is God’s love for me, one of his children? It can’t even be compared.

In the meantime, please just say a prayer for me. That’s the best way anyone can help. Forgive me if I’m occasionally a little “blah,” and if you happen to be an Epic fan, good gravy, please talk to me about Epic. Escaping to the world of Novosibirsk, and Room-14, and Bakmas, and E-35s is like, the greatest therapy in the world right now. It’s like medicine.

And that’s it. I don’t plan on harping on this topic, but I will keep people posted as things develop. Hopefully I won’t need to for much longer!

 

(because I’m cured, not dead)

 

By

Facing 2013

I have never been a good blogger. It is, perhaps more than any other tangible reason, why I struggle to maintain social relevance. I know this, and so it is no mystery to me. It is among the things I am worst at.

There is a front that I have always put up. Perhaps I am alone in this as a writer, though I suspect not. It is not a front of confidence. Every writer has a measure of confidence, and we are often far too eager to share it for the sake of gaining prospective buyers, or as we prefer to call them, fans. If anything, we often have more confidence than we should.

My front is one of knowledge – not a lack thereof in the general sense, rather a specific knowledge. The knowledge of what to do next. It is a risky endeavor to confess that one doesn’t know what they’re doing, as they are sure to face a barrage of impeccable wisdom from people who have never walked in their shoes or experienced what they’ve experienced. But just the same, the reality remains. I have no idea what I’m doing. I never have. Sometimes I’ll have a general awareness of where “what should be done” is lurking, but it’s usually through third-hand information or by catching fleeting glances of its shadow as it darts around the corner. I am not referring to the general progression of Epic, the series, or of the process of actually writing text and creating products. My lack of clarity is, to put it simply, regarding what to do with those things once I’ve finished them. I don’t know how to sell this series.

I have tried to sell it, in many ways that I’ve always felt were creative and new, but few of which have bore the kind of fruit I’ve envisioned. And so I try more, and I try harder, as this creation called Epic pillages me of the placidity and lackadaisicalness that has always come naturally to me as a human being. I work myself to death. I plow fields of futility in the never-ending search for the grass that is always growing on the other side. I put my ducks in a row, then I watch as they scatter. But it hasn’t been until now that I’ve found enough of my center to lean back and examine myself without toppling over – and to listen to my wife as she told me again, “Lee, it’s because you have no faith.”

It is both challenging and humbling for a Christian – a church deacon, no less – to confess that he lacks faith. The faithful servant does his duty to the best of his ability, then leaves it to God and moves on to the next thing, knowing that God’s will will be done, and that regardless of the outcome for him personally, all things will work for the greater good. The analytical capitalist, however, examines what he’s done, measures its successes and failures, then returns to it to constantly tweak and fiddle in a vain effort to grab perfection while the mirage is still there. When he fails, he tries again. He asks why. He works harder, because in America, if you work hard enough, you will succeed. The thought of leaving something alone – of letting it go and leaving its fate in the hands of something else – is borderline lunacy. It’s also the right thing to do.

My goal for 2013 is not to work harder. It’s not even to work smarter, despite the fact that some steps will be taken to do so. My goal is to have faith. To do, to the best of my ability, then to let go. To not worry about the fact that I haven’t begun Enemy One yet, or that I’m producing an audiobook that I have no idea how to release, or that the author over there is soaring to the heights of financial prosperity while I am not. My goal is just to trust. To remember that no sparrow can fall to the ground without the Father’s allowance. To remember that I am more valuable to God than many sparrows. This is not a New Year’s resolution. This isn’t limited to a 365-day time span. This is a change.

I have a lot of things planned for this coming year that I believe Epic fans will love. There’s the Dawn of Destiny audiobook, the novella I’m writing for Goldhawk Interactive called Xenonauts: Crimson Dagger. There is something incredibly cool that I’ve already alluded to in a post on Epic’s Facebook Fan Page (that I’m fairly certain no other indie author has done before), which I don’t mind saying now is related to question #4 on my “Next Big Thing” blog post. There’s some breathtaking artwork that will be posted soon, courtesy of a very talented artist from the website deviantART, along with some Epic merchandise that might actually be worth buying. I’ll even be going to boot camp with Toni and Shannon, the tag-team from Duolit, to begin my transformation from socially irrelevant indie peon to a lean, mean, force to be reckoned with. I still have a drive to be the best. I am still ferociously competitive. I will never be a person satisfied with “good enough.” But I also realize that without faith, all labor is for naught. And that as much as any artist strives for prosperity, it isn’t what’s most important (regardless of how competitive one happens to be). What’s important is that work is given to God, and entrusted to God, that it might be used by God. Only then will it be what He intends for it to be. I am learning to be okay with that. I am striving to desire that. It is easy to say, “I want God’s will,” when all too often what we want is our own success and the praise that comes with it. It is difficult to be Christ-like. This is the struggle for the Christian.

Long ago, before I wrote the first line in Dawn of Destiny, I dedicated Epic to God. Slowly over the years, I’ve wrestled it back, not necessarily in the scope of the plot, but in the scope of my own efforts in trying to market it. I’ve tried to do this myself. But I can’t. Nor should I. And so now, once again, I am turning this series over to God. I will trust that its success or failure is not contingent on my ability to be all things at all times for it. I will do the best that I can, then I will hand it over. What happens then will be out of my control – as it was always intended to be.

And that will be okay.