Beneath the Kindling

Last year, Steph Penny’s story ‘Beneath the Kindling’ was published in our 2023 anthology Terracotta Travellers and other stories of life. It was not a story that was easy to write, as she explains:

Kindling is by far the most difficult story I have written to date. It was hard to write about a period of significant illness, but even harder to narrate was how the illness impacted my mind and my faith. It’s tough to write about incomplete, inadequate, jigsawed faith when I haven’t worked out how to put it together again.

Why write about something so confronting? Was it the hope of catharsis? No, I don’t find writing about agony to be therapeutic. I find it agonising. But I know there are brothers and sisters of mine who have lived through similar illness or circumstances, who may be trying to fit the pieces of their jigsaw life back together and who feel as inadequate as I do. I wrote it for them.

 

To those special people, my message is simply this: you are not alone. I know, in part, what you are going through, and even better, God knows too. Yes, there are times when life sucks and it seems he has created our brittle bodies in order to see how fast we burn. But when troubles do ignite, he is with us in the raging fire, living through it moment by moment with us. When we feel like kindling, that is a window through which God can step into our world, not just to be with us but to bear it with us. And sometimes he fills the blackened remains with himself.

 

The title for my story was taken from a quote by Alia Joy in her book, Glorious Weakness, where she describes her ongoing struggles with physical illness and mental distress:

 

I didn’t know my dry and weary bones were kindling for a spirit ablaze with the weight of God’s glory…My deficiency was the strongest thing about me because God was fully present in my lack.

 

I’m not too sure about my faith at present, but I’m sure about Jesus. I need his presence even more than healing, even more than answers. Yes, healing and answers would be wonderful. Perhaps one day I will have them. But even more precious to me is the nearness of Jesus, the One who can fully empathise with us because he became fully human and joined in our pain. That’s God-with-us.

 

Whoever you are, whatever fires may be ravaging your life, I pray that as you read this you will know the deep and abiding sense of God’s care. He is with us.

 

Get a copy of Terracotta Warriors and other stories of life from our online bookstore, or read selected stories from the anthology in our archives.