Sunday Devotion- The Ten Commandments for Writers, #5

Janet Rubin

Deut. 5:16 "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you."


Writers. We have different styles, different genres. Some of us plot everything out, some just write by the seat of the pants. We get our inspiration in different places and none of our stories are exactly alike. But we do have a few things in common. We were all created by the same God, all of us made in His image. And we all have parents.


The first four commandments had to do with how we relate to and honor God. This week, with number Five, He tells us how He wants us to relate to other people, starting with the ones responsible for bringing us into the world- our parents. It's interesting that this post falls on Father's Day, a day when many of us have our minds on dad.


I'm not sure what impacts us more than our upbringing. Whether our parents were strict or lenient, caring or cold, present or absent... these are things we carry for life. We remember the trouble we got in, the words that hurt us, the mistakes we think mom and dad made. The temptation to memorialize those parts of our past by including them in our writing can be strong. Who we are tends to spill onto paper whether we intend it or not, and our parents are indeed part of who we are.



Sometimes it is appropriate to include our parents- literally or disguised as other characters- in our writing, but we must keep this command in mind and prayerfully consider whether our writing is honoring or dishonoring our parents.



God, Your commands are good. Honoring parents can be hard. Please help us to allow You to be the One to heal our hurts and listen to our complaints. Help us not to dishonor our parents before the world. Amen