What Really Matters?Chikamu

Studying Your Tears

Cheryl Grey Bostrom has an inspired way with words. She is a novelist with an international best-seller fiction book, a photographer, and an observer of nature and human behavior. When she’s not devoting her time to practicing her craft through daily writing, you can find Cheryl outdoors, seeking to slow her active mind “enough to grab Christ’s hand.”

In this interview, Cheryl shares with vulnerability about surrendering to still, creative, quiet moments with God.

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I have a jackrabbit, non-linear brain. Concepts coalesce all at once for me, much like the scenes that sharpen when I twist focus rings on my camera lenses. Also, I read very quickly. Combined, those traits have proven hugely useful for checking boxes, assimilating data, and shaping practical plans and conclusions.

But a left brain in high gear can be a closed-circuit tyrant, leaving little room for the full expression of worship in both truth and spirit that John talks about in his gospel. My bossy left hemisphere digs the intellectual part of truth but can overpower its reflective, deep-souled absorption and my emotional and spiritual response to God.

So … I trick it. Quiet it with detours. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go walking. Hum a little.”

Most days, we do — for miles and miles over trails and fields and country roads.

Outbound, worship music plays on my phone until the rambunctious kid in me slows enough to grab Christ’s hand. By the time we turn and head for home, my Bible app’s playing a dramatized version of the NLT. The reading’s slow, and I can hear it with all of me.

Often, I weep along the way. If you’ve ever studied tears, you’ll know that their composition differs depending upon their emotional inspiration.

I figure mine speak of time with God.

—Cheryl Grey Bostrom, bestselling novelist, as told to Rapt Interviews.