Fiction Friday: On Tour with Matthew Elliott
One of the things that jump started my career as an author was the fact that I was contracted by The Gospel Daily to write daily devotionals for their email subscribers. My first published book was actually a devotional called Ahavah Writings for the Journey. The word Ahavah is Hebrew for Love. It was something I wrote after being inspired by Brother Lawrence’s book called, The Practice of the Presence of God. That little book changed my whole outlook on faith and helped me see things from a different perspective.
My post today is focused on something similar that I have been working on as a side project. A devotional shaped through my experiences learning that grief is not the sad ending to any story. It is a chapter that reminds us how deeply we love.
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Through the Night
If you have ever held onto a weight so heavy that it began to reshape who you were, then I would say
For me, I lived this way for many years. I acted as a person of strong faith and kept my joy, on the surface anyway. No matter what was going on below the surface, I made sure my joy was visible to those around me. Why, you may ask? Well, because I was convinced that everyone else's needs mattered more than my own.
In writing my 2025 novel, The Hope of Inheritance, I learned something. While digging deep into the emotional possibilities behind what the persecution and suffering the believers of the early church could have endured. I began to see the value of paying attention to my own emotional struggles. You see, growing up emotions were often brushed aside and I never really learned how to interpret what I was feeling. In truth, there was also a whole lot of therapy that helped me see this value as well.
What I started to see through my memories and experiences was that I had endured a lot of grief in life. Behind the hurts of childhood and the unspoken pains of life, I realized that I had been treating my grief as a flaw that had to be hidden from the world around me rather than felt. I pushed it down deep and had no intention of ever picking it back up again.
I know now that my grief was not a spiritual failure, or a burden for me to lock away until the storms of life passed on by. At its core, I am learning that grief is everything we ever wanted to give someone, or something, but no longer can. It is the lasting, yet beautiful, evidence of a deep and unquenchable love. This realization not only laid the groundwork for a 7-day devotional I titled, Through the Night, but it also laid the groundwork for my upcoming novel, A Broken Embrace.
We do not have to carry the weight of grief alone. We do not have to live life wondering why grief even matters. Through this seven-day devotional, those who read it will see some of my experiences with grief, how they shaped the way I see the world today, and how the true remedy to grief isn’t forgetting the past, but embracing the love that comes because of it. God longs to turn our deepest grief into a testament of his abiding love.
Right now, the unpolished version of this devotional is available to those who follow me on REAMStories, but soon I hope to release the polished and expanded version to the world. Thanks again for having me back Linda. As always, it was a pleasure to be here.
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Matthew (also known by his pen names M.J. Elliott and E.M. James) is an award-winning, dedicated writer with a deep passion for sharing the word of Christ. He is married and the proud father of three wonderful children who continually inspire his faith and creativity. Through his writing, Matthew seeks to minister with love, equip others with encouragement, and help readers encounter God in real and meaningful ways.
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Website: https://www.mjelliott-author.com/
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