reality bites

I posted this picture to my other blog, A Few Words in the Wind and got a number of comments on how beautiful this picture is. And it is quite amazing. To see this many deer in one place is very unusual. And, in this case, very sad. We've had a mountain of snow fall on us steadily since October. This deep snow has made browsing difficult for the deer, so they go where it's easy. This is a logging block and the snow has been packed down and/or pushed away. The deer come to eat the branches and the moss off the branches of the tress that have been felled and limbed. Essentially the deer are starving. So a person can look at this picture two ways. You could marvel at the beauty, or you could feel sorrow for the reality. As a writer I struggle to portray a balance of the beauty of this picture with the reality it also portrays. In my books I struggle to show the life God has blessed us with, with the reality of the struggles this life also gives us. At the same time I have to think of a comment one of my readers said. Their own life is struggle and sorrow. They don't necessarily want to read about the same thing they are living when they pick up a book. Yet, I also know that if the story was too unrealistic, too full of false hope and promises, they wouldn't read it either. So, the balancing act. I want to take my readers on a journey they are willing to take and bring them to a place of hope. I am thankful that as a Christian, I am able through Christ, to point the way to a surer hope through my stories. It's not up to me.