054 Chronic Illness, Creativity, and Faith with Author W.R. Gingell PART 2

If I’m living my faith, what matters is that I am in fellowship with God first and foremost. That’s the most important thing, having my quiet time with God, having my prayer time, and also having fellowship with other believers. But that’s not going to look the same as it did when I had a fully healthy body.

For me, I’ve been so blessed in that I’ve ended up in a group of writers who are not only writers, but Christians. We have people from a few different branches of faith. Some of us grew up Baptist, some Presbyterian, some Catholic, some Mormon. It’s a mix. Our faith doesn’t look the same, but in a lot of things, there is a sameness and there is fellowship to be had.

I really love that because the normal things you would get from church — being with other believers, discussing things, iron sharpening iron, as they say — I get that online now. That’s been really important for me because at the same time that my body has made it almost impossible to get to church every Sunday, there’s been so much upheaval in the church worldwide in terms of horrible misogyny and bad stuff coming out all the time. I’m tired of seeing women and children abused and misused, and men claiming God being the worst of people.

I know the Apostle Paul said he was the worst of sinners, but he was also actively trying to change. That is not what I’m seeing in the church at the moment, and it gives me a lot of pain.

If I didn’t have the online relationships with other Christians that I have, I would be very much poorer. I’m not saying it’s okay to not go to church and not get any fellowship. I am saying church is not the only place to get fellowship.

For me, the thing I miss most is being able to sing together. I can listen to a sermon. I can read a book. I can read the Word of God for myself and study for myself. But I can’t worship God together by myself. I can worship God by myself, but not together with other believers. That is very precious, and it is something I feel has been taken away.

You can listen to online sermons. I can tune into my church’s service from bed, and that’s a great good that’s come out of COVID. I love that. But it’s not the same thing as worshiping in person.

A lot of churches these days tend not to have an afternoon service. It’s usually morning if there’s one service. Even where I live, none of the churches I could go to have a service late enough for me to get out of bed, get dressed, get up right, and get there most Sundays.

Unfortunately, despite the number of women specifically in my community who have long COVID and/or POTS or another chronic illness, church leadership has been very unwilling to provide another service that we could potentially go to that would be a little later in the afternoon, or have less intensity in terms of the worship service so it wouldn’t be overwhelming.

That’s left a lot of us in my specific community without a place to go. It’s hard not to feel as though it wouldn’t be this way if it were men who were ill. Since it’s mostly women, a lot of it feels like we are expected to suffer because it is women’s place to suffer.

That has been a hard thing to realize about the church community where I am. I’m sure they don’t feel that way. I’m sure they think they’re being loving in having online services. But it has been a sorrow to my heart that there’s nothing for me and for others like me.

April: I think sorrow is a good way to put that. It’s something I’ve struggled with. We’ve started watching services online as I’ve been dealing with some back issues that hopefully, at least that piece, will be resolved sooner than later. I don’t know that it’ll ever go completely away, but having less severe pain than I’m dealing with right now would be nice.

Like you said, I’m used to pain, just not like this.

Wendy: It weighs on you.

April: It does. Online service has been an amazing thing that came out of COVID. One of our churches in the area that I was a founding member of started online services before COVID hit. I love saying that because it was something that I saw a need for with some homebound people in our church who were desperate to go to church but couldn’t. We had my home video camera, and we figured it out and made it work.

COVID has exponentially changed that for a lot of us, and that’s been a wonderful thing. But it is hard when you don’t get to sit and sing with your fellow Christians in the congregation, and sit and hear the joint amen or the joint yes, or whatever it is that’s happening around you.

Wendy: Or even take communion. If you’re low church, communion isn’t the same thing it would be for high church or specifically Catholic-type churches, but it’s the table of the Lord. It’s a remembrance, and it’s a holy place of the body and blood of Christ.

While I may not believe it turns into actual body and blood, it’s a holy place. We’re told that where we are there, we’re meeting with God. He’s there with us.

With a lot of churches, as you’ll probably know because I guess it will be the same in your church, you have the time for quiet reflection, repentance, and asking for forgiveness that comes with that. I know I can always repent of things at home. I should do it a lot more than I do. But there is a very specific kind of holiness when you’re fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters in your church home. You’re coming together corporately to confess your sins and ask for forgiveness, and then coming directly into the presence of God to receive the sign of the forgiveness you’ve already been given.

April: There’s a scripture that says, “Where two or more are gathered, God is with them.” That doesn’t mean God isn’t with us in our singular moments. It simply means that, like you said, there is a specific type of holiness that happens. There’s a specific type of fellowship with God that’s different when it’s corporate worship and we’re among other believers.

It fuels our spirit. It fuels our souls. I get joy out of that type of fellowship, and I hate it when I can’t go. We moved back to Texas, and we’re with my family right now until we close on our house. I was hoping this past Sunday to go to our church that we’re still members of here, and there was no way I was going to be able to get up because I’ve been in so much pain at night.

It was a moment of, “This is really sad,” and at the same time, “Okay, I’ll watch church online. I understand this is what my life is.” It does both.

Thank you for sharing how you feel because I think you and I have a lot of similarities in both how we were raised and how we see things right now, which is very cool.

What feels more honest about your life now than it did before having to really deal with chronic illness?

Wendy: I like that question too. I think specifically it’s not only facing and naming the things that are different and living them differently and allowing my life to be different. For me, a really big part of this — and I don’t know if it counts as honesty or not — has been trying to learn to be kind to myself.

A big part of that is the chronic illness, and a big part of it is also having nephews now. Technically, I’ve had one of them for about eight years now and one of them for six or seven years now. I’m a bit fuzzy on the ages. There’s one newborn one now.

The way I speak to them is with kindness and patience. The way I speak to myself is generally not. It’s very much not.

I started noticing a couple of years back that when one of the boys did something wrong or if they were ashamed of themselves, they would start saying, “I’m such an idiot. I’m really stupid.” I was like, “Oh no, that’s what I’ve been saying aloud around them. They think that’s okay to say about themselves.”

I started telling them, “No, you’re not an idiot. You don’t need to talk about yourself like that. You misjudged this, or you did something wrong, and you can do it better next time.”

And with kids, you can probably guess what happened next. I would slip and say something like that, and they would look up at me and go, “You are not stupid, Auntie Wendy. You’re not allowed to say that.”

This tiny little kid is telling you that, and you’re realizing over and over again, with varying degrees of intensity, how cruel you are to yourself. How regularly cruel you are to yourself.

That has been really hard to change. Some of it is because of where I grew up. Some of it is because of the eleven years I spent married. But none of it excuses keeping on going that way because it’s bad for me, and it’s also bad for the people around me.

It’s not only bad because it influences younger kids to do that, but it also makes people’s lives around you so much more difficult because a lot of the time they then feel a burden to reassure you and make sure you’re okay. They’re trying to protect you from a hater, but the hater is you. It’s unfair. It’s unfair to them. It’s unfair to me. It’s cruelness.

There’s no need to talk to yourself like that. It’s not healthy. It’s not right. And I think you yourself do not have the right to talk to a person God made, and in whose body the image of God is, like that. You don’t have the right to talk to someone who is in the image of God like that, whether it’s yourself or someone else.

April: Preach that, girl. Oh my goodness.

Wendy: It takes so long to realize, and it takes so long to implement. I still fail and fall in that so many times. In modern language, I guess I’d call it self-love. It is self-love, but to me it feels like more of an integration with your life than something as simple as self-love. It’s a lifestyle, and it’s a way of seeing souls, I think.

April: I think self-love has changed. The true definition is loving who you are, who God made you to be. But as a culture, we’ve gotten into some of what I call the hippie-dippy stuff, where we’ve taken self-love and created this whole thing.

Wendy: Heavy individualism. Justification for anything.

April: Yeah. I don’t think that’s the way God created it. What you said is so good and so accurate, and that’s one of the quotes I want to pull from this episode. God doesn’t want us to see ourselves that way. He says, “Why are you talking to a piece of my creation like this? I created you to be who you are. Stop talking to yourself like this.”

You seriously preached to me today because I’ve had a counselor look at me and say, “You are really mean to yourself. Do you know that?” And I’m like, “Yes, I know.” You kind of justify it.

Wendy: But how do you stop it? What are your first steps? It’s an instinct and a reflex after you’ve been doing it for long enough.

April: Especially if you’ve been through trauma. We immediately go to that space in our head where we’re like, “I am stupid. I’m not enough. I did the wrong thing.”

My husband has looked at me and said, “Stop apologizing for things. You didn’t do anything wrong.” And I’m like, “I know, but I can’t stop.”

Wendy: It’s easier to recognize it in someone else than to recognize it and do something about it in yourself, especially if you love that other person.

April: So much. Children are a mirror for us. Children will repeat the things we say, good or bad. To be able to see that and recognize, “I don’t want him talking to himself like that, so I need to stop doing that,” is really cool.

For someone who feels guilty for resting or choosing something easier, what would you say to them right now?

Wendy: I would say that you’re a soul. You deserve rest. And you not only deserve rest — it’s a requirement of you.

God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day he rested as a picture to us that rest is not only important, but holy. Our body is called a temple, and rest is holy. If rest is holy and your body is a temple, it’s something you need to do. It’s something required, and it’s also something good and joyful for you.

It’s also something needed, especially if you’re chronically ill, especially if you’re having trouble functioning on a normal level. Especially as women, we’re often told or it’s suggested to us that we have to pour ourselves out for the family until there’s nothing left.

A lot of the ways people try to make us feel better about feeling guilty even feed into that. They say, “You need to stay healthy for your family.” No, my sister, you need to stay healthy because you deserve to be healthy, because your body is a temple, and because you are a soul made in the image of God. That is something that is yours.

A friend of mine was into ominous positivity, and she did some beautiful paintings. One of them is a bear, and it’s all very dark and ominous in dark blues, and it says, “Take your rest. After all, it belongs to you.” I love that because it does belong to you. Rest is holy. It’s something God gave us. It’s something he wants us to do.

So if on the day of rest, if on Sunday — the day that is so packed with church things — if you rest, surely that is more holy and more right in the sight of God than all the activities you could do. You can be a Mary instead of a Martha. You can be sitting at the feet of Jesus instead of serving.

I think that goes not only for Sunday and not only for shame around churchgoing or not churchgoing. You need rest. Your body needs rest. You need it for your mental health. You need it for your bodily health. But you need it because you deserve to have rest. It’s something God has given you, and it’s something holy.

Don’t throw what’s holy to the dogs. Don’t let shame get at it. It’s yours.

April: Boy, we are preaching on the podcast today. I’m loving this.

Let me ask you a few lighter questions before we wrap up here. What is something small that makes your day feel a little more like yours? A little more joyful?

Wendy: It can be anything from tea, because I really love my tea. My life runs on cups of tea and sometimes cups of coffee, usually cold brew. I don’t feel quite human if I don’t have access to a good strong cup of tea or a nice bit of cold brew. That really does make me feel more like me.

Honestly, this might sound weird and materialistic, but this little place I’ve built around me since I’ve been living on my own in my own space. As I mentioned earlier, I live in a Bedford bus. It’s fit out as a home on the inside. It also has some little house guests, as in spiders and mice, which I deal with in different ways. The dog does not deal with them at all.

After I started making a living wage with my books, I went to an artist festival, a Christian one — the Pilgrim Artists Festival that happens in the Huon Valley. Not all the artists are Christians, but it’s a Christian festival, and usually there’s a thematic element that people submit to.

I was there one year looking at all the amazing art, and I was looking at this piece behind me. This was just after I escaped from my marriage, and I was feeling very raw, but also very hopeful. This piece is called Strength for Today, Bright Hope for Tomorrow, which spoke to me immediately. I loved the look of it so much.

It occurred to me in that moment, “I’m allowed to buy art. I can own this art. This is a thing I can take and hold and own.” I asked what price it was, and it was actually something I could afford.

Ever since then, my little brain has been like, “We’re allowed to buy art. We’re a person who buys art. We are a patron of the arts.”

I’ve got more than one painting by this lady, Fiona Vidal. She does amazing stuff. This is one of her pieces that’s a little out of what she normally does. She normally does Tasmanian landscapes, and they’re all gorgeous. I have several of her works now.

I’ve been picking up pieces here and there. I’ve picked up another local artist, Ruth Bosveld’s stuff. She does miniatures on piano keys — gorgeous miniatures on tiny piano keys, beautiful bucolic Tasmanian scenes. I realized, “Oh, I can do that. I can buy textile art that somebody in this location made, and I can touch that every day. I can bury my face in that weird little woolly thing, and it’s mine. I can own art. I can touch art.”

That opened up a piece of my brain, and I’ve been collecting weird little things ever since. Whenever I see something that’s original art I can afford and that I love, I don’t always get it, but if it brings me joy and it fits in this space — which I’m beginning to run out of, quite honestly — and if it fits with everything else here, there’s a good chance I’m going to put my joy money toward that.

It makes me happy. I’ve got things from America, Korea, around Australia, bits and pieces here and there that I pick up and love. Even today, I’m wearing something from a signing I did in America, the only signing I’ve done. One of my readers bought this gorgeous little heart pendant and gave it to me, and another bought a lucky four-leaf clover and had pressed it.

Things like that, looking around and being able to physically touch beautiful things that give me joy. And to add to that, my entire wardrobe that is far too full of clothing, but it’s art I can wear. Even this top is a joy to me because it’s soft and warm and green and pretty. I love it so much.

Having things that make me feel like myself specifically, being in this little bower I’ve created around myself like a bowerbird, having my wearable, comfortable art, having my touchable views into other people’s minds — that is artwork. That makes me really happy. That makes me feel like I’ve got myself a home and a place.

Honestly, also, my nephews or my sister popping in and sitting down and talking. I don’t think you could buy a better life than that. It’s a wonderful life for me.

April: That’s awesome. I love seeing a good piece of art, and I might have to buy some of those piano keys. My husband is the piano player and loves piano stuff, so that might be a present coming up.

Art and pretty things around me fuel my spirit as well. I think especially creatives need that to feel peaceful and to feel joy. To look up and see a piece that made you smile when you saw it. Like the piece behind you — that makes me feel something when I look at it. I love it.

For those who want to connect with you, buy your books, and find out more about you, please tell us all the places they can find you and get to know you more.

Wendy: If you want mostly bookish stuff, my Facebook page is W.R. Gingell. That’s the best place to find me because I share snippets from my books there, I burble about nonsense things, I share a lot of photographs, and I have an attached more private Facebook group for long-term readers called Denizens of the Weird Worlds of W.R. Gingell. There’s a lot of book discussion in there. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s bubbly. Facebook is a good place to find me.

If you’re interested in what I do visually, as in you want to see a little bit of the bus house, day-to-day stuff, reels of me doing normal things, or if you want to see the photographs I take, Instagram is a good place for that. I always love sharing my photography. It’s one of the ways I like to share my view of the world, and it’s also a good way for me to practice and get better at it. I also make book announcements there, so you’re not likely to miss book announcements if you’re not on Facebook and you’re on Instagram.

That is also W.R. Gingell. I’m very easy to find on all of these places. I went with the initials and the last name.

I’m also on Threads and Bluesky. On those two, I tend to be mildly to moderately unhinged, so it is mostly nonsense burbled over there, but I do also make book announcements.

I also have a newsletter called The Write Newsletter, which is a play on the W.R. That goes out about twice a month, and you can find sign-up links on my Facebook and in my Instagram profile link.

For ebooks, you can buy them anywhere you buy ebooks. I only have two series that are exclusive to Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited. They’re my latest two series, I believe. They’re all urban fantasy, mostly Aussie main characters. One of them is set in Seoul, South Korea, because I spend a lot of time there, and the current one is set in Melbourne.

Anywhere else ebooks are sold, my books are going to be there. You can get the paperbacks at the same places. Kobo now has a reading subscription as well, so all of my books that aren’t specific to Amazon, you can read them if you’ve got a subscription with Kobo.

I also have a lot of audiobooks now, urban fantasy ones. Tantor has been buying up the rights to those, so they’re out there, and I have a great narrator. That’s basically all the places you can find me.

April: I’ll say too, if you want to read some great short stories from our lovely author W.R. Gingell, you can head over to her website as well. She’s got some interesting, very short stories done kind of blog-style. I enjoyed reading a couple of those this week as we got ready for this interview.

You’re a very talented writer, and I look forward to reading your books.

Wendy: I keep forgetting I still have those.

April: Blogs are great because sometimes we have things we forget we had.

Wendy: That has been meaning to be revamped for many years, but I don’t have the skill or the time to learn the skill. I’m going to do something about that, and soon I’ll start selling books from my own platform there. That is probably TBA sometime this year or next year if I get it done. But the short stories are there. There’s a tab that says “Short Things” or “Shorts” where you can find them, so they’re not too hard to find.

April: Wendy, thank you so much for being part of this conversation today.