Just over two years ago, I was in the midst of one of the most difficult seasons of life. It came just shortly after one of the most exciting seasons of my life, so I was dealing with two extremes of life’s spectrums. During this time, anxiety, depression, and other problems arose in my life and I never knew why such things were happening. Why was I struggling with so much doubt and anxiety? Why was my walk with God feeling so broken and distorted? Why was the things that were happening in my life truly happening? It felt like I was hanging on the edge of a cliff.

One night, while continuing to struggle with such doubt and fear, God revealed to me the root of my problems. Through a vision, God showed me a picture of a desert, one that he had shown me before. However, there I was at the edge of a cliff staring at a man that was sitting on a rock next to the cliff’s end. This man was no Godly man, but a monster. A man with thick crimson skin, almost like clay. He sat on the rock with only a mask on his face. That mask it wasn’t terrifying to look at, well at first. It was of something that I deeply desired. A mask that I was so enticed by. That was the problem, I was enticed by this man’s fake face. Like most humans, when we are enticed by something, I got closer to it. God revealed to me that the man was the devil and all he wanted was to lure me in just so he had the chance to throw me over the cliff.

Fast forward two years later, I finished writing my first novel about this devil. The Red Man became the centerpiece of almost everything that I could think about writing. However, I never wanted my focus to be solely on him. It all started with a poem, one that I wrote with the intentions of keeping to myself as a reminder of that vision. I never wanted to be thrown over the cliff, so I had to constantly remind myself that it was only a mask. It was fake. There is actually nothing satisfying underneath. Only pain, misery, anxiety, depression, and fear.

That poem served as a reminder of my struggles and my challenge as a man devoted to God, one who faces his inner demons each and every day. Through the process of two years, I began writing other works of literature, stories, poetry, even letters, that all centered on The Red Man. As I mentioned, however, I never wanted The Red Man to be my only focus. Instead, a man that represented all that was evil and murderous, I wanted to highlight the opposite side even more. Hope everlasting, that is what I wanted to highlight.

So, after the many stories and poems that I had written, I began to see a common theme: hope in the midst of darkness. With such commonality, I began to wonder, “Could I possibly write one overarching story by using all of these different works?” It became my mad science experiment, and just like every experiment, you never know if it will work until you are finished. I believe that at the end of this two-year process, I created a work of literature that highlighted just that: hope everlasting. 

I hope that you find this novel to be encouraging and intriguing. I will go further into details within the next few posts. Thank you to all that have participated with me on this journey, and I will let everyone know when the next post is available to read as I discuss the process of writing the stories, poems, and letters given in The Red Man.