It’s been my deepest desire to write about the making of my short story Rooms, which is extremely personal to me. I finally felt that the time was right to actually sit down and share about a darkness that, for the longest time, haunted me and cost me so much lost time. What better way to do this than to put it on a public blog for all the world to see! Joking aside, I feel that it’s good for everyone to see that we are all just human. We all make mistakes and we all fall flat on our faces. And that’s okay. The sole point in sharing our failures with others is to, one, learn from them, and two, release any guilt or shame we may unintentionally be carrying with us in the process.
So, let’s dive into the muck, for out of the dirt came this story that I am so passionate about.
The entire concept behind this story began on one Sunday morning quite a few years ago (specifics unknown). My pastor was teaching on how to let go of certain things in our lives by giving those spaces within our minds over for God’s use. He explained that our brains are like storage facilities or large buildings with many little rooms with them; each serving a function or thought process in our lives, whether it be a certain activity we enjoy, a habit, a philosophy, or specific cluster of ideas.
He used his personal example of his habit of smoking cigarettes. That entire room within his mind was filled with all the ideas, processes, decisions, etc, involving smoking. It was an unhealthy habit he could not shake. It seemed the entire ability to be able to finally quit had gone up in smoke (I couldn’t help it). At last, he decided to give it over to God to take care of; he gave that room to be occupied by Him. In that moment, he was no longer a “smoker.” God had gone through, cleaned up the place, maybe even redecorated a bit, and became the lone tenant. It changed my pastor’s life in that aspect, and all because of faith.
C.J. Huffman 