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Life was great. I had just given my life over to God, and I was ready to take on the world. “Follow God, no matter where he takes you.” My preacher’s words echoed in the back of my mind. What had he meant by that? God wouldn’t lead me into suffering, I’d always be happy with Him, right? Things were amazing, people at church were congratulating me, and I’d never been filled with more wonder about the Bible in all my life. I was amazed at the countless stories told about Christ, and faith, and hope. I was in awe at the love God felt for us, for His children.

“What can I do to live for God?” I asked my preacher one Sunday morning. “Follow God, no matter where he takes you.” He recited, smiling at me and walking away. Once again, I was left in confusion. How was I to follow God, I didn’t know where He wanted me to go, much less, what he wanted me to do. So once again, I left the church confused of what God wanted me to do, but willing to do whatever it took.

I had a dream that night. I’d been running through a field, happily picking flowers and adoring nature, when a man appeared. “Follow me” He called and walked down the hill and toward the woods. Curious, I followed him, and stopped when I saw where he was going. He stopped, and turned around to face me, “Why did you stop?” I looked down at the bottom of the hill “look at it, it’s dark, and who knows what animals are down there, waiting to hurt us!” I exclaimed, appalled at the fact that he wanted to lead me down there. He turned and smiled, “Sometimes, it takes a lot of pain for the sake of others.” He held out his hand, and I noticed the sun seeping through a ragged hole that went straight through his wrist. “Are you coming?” He said, waiting patiently, “there are others waiting for you to spread the Good News.” I looked toward the woods; the shadows didn’t look all that bad. “Alright” I whispered, taking his outstretched hand “Let’s go.”

And I will walk through the valley if he wants me to.

Savannah, I'm glad to be the first to review a story of yours! Now, you posted on Christian Writers saying all you write is about God and I might just say congrats on the attitude.

About how your story was written. Well, firstly let me say that the main problem with this story is that it's not a story, it's a testimonial. And while it happens, one of the worst ways for someone to have an epiphany is in a dream, or let me say that's one of the most cliched ways - very frequently done. Now, what if you want to use the dream still? The best way to make it more interesting is to simply make your main character more interesting. Have the dream at least connect to something in his/her life? If you can copy and paste into somebody else's testimony, then it ain't that interesting (unless, of course, the dream was really in depth and interesting). I mean even in the Bible, God called people by name. It's hard to just copy and paste. Make sure all your stories and everything that happens to your character is somehow unique to them, even if the only thing unique is a name.

I liked that it wasn't way too overdone. I sense that your character is typical, before they meet Christ. Perhaps they didn't do drugs or persecute Christians. Maybe they were just the guy down the block? That's fresh, but harder to pull off than a cliche. Christian Conversion stories usually have something to do with drug addicts, but the characters are always so fresh that it overrides the feeling of 'just another one'. Now you choose - will your character have the shattered past or the normal one. The shattered past - when pulled off - makes you cry at the end. When you fail to write in nicely, it's too cliched and feels forced and fake. The 'normal guy' story, when pulled off, is more inspirational because it hits home. How? Many people feel that because God didn't appear to them in a light on the road to Damascus, they're not that Christian type... know what I mean? But if it's something small like a gossiping housewife whose gossip backfires... it's great. When done wrong... it becomes a copy-paste story and nobody remembers it.

This was just my opinion. Also, get your story a title. If you can't think of one it may be because your story doesn't have a plot. I would love to help you with the title but you must first give a plot. A good way to know what your plot is is to write one sentence summarizing it ('A black man runs for office in the South' or 'A sitemaster must contend with a virus that originates from his site, all the way to Washington, D.C.')

Hey, Savannah! Once again, I welcome you to this site! I've found you at the Welcome Matt, and yep, as you requested, I decided to check out your stuff. I'm Jash by the way, and this will be a quick review of your work. So I might as well start.

First thing I've noticed with your work is your dialogue tags. For example:

“Follow God, no matter where he takes you,” he recited, smiling at me and walking away.

There should be a comma instead of period because the dialogue is part of the sentence itself. You don't break that line from the rest of the sentence.

“Follow me,” He called and walked down the hill and toward the woods.

"He", of course, is capitalized here because it refers to God, right? =) If so... you should be consistent with it:

Curious, I followed Him, and stopped when I saw where He was going.

“Why did you stop?” I looked down at the bottom of the hill. “Look at it, it’s dark, and who knows what animals are down there, waiting to hurt us!” I exclaimed, appalled at the fact that he wanted to lead me down there.

He turned and smiled. “Sometimes, it takes a lot of pain for the sake of others.” He held out his hand, and I noticed the sun seeping through a ragged hole that went straight through his wrist. “Are you coming?” He said, waiting patiently. “There are others waiting for you to spread the Good News.” I looked toward the woods; the shadows didn’t look all that bad. “Alright” I whispered, taking his outstretched hand. “Let’s go.”

OK, I'll go briefly about the other nitpick I have for you: new paragraph for every new dialogue line. That's kind of a rule, right? In the previous paragraph, "Are you coming?" should be a new paragraph... it's hard to explain but you'll get it as you go.

Last nitpick would be: I don't think this is a short story. There wasn't a plot. Well, if there was a plot, it wasn't a full one and it was hard to point it out. This is too short, I think. And well, the MC, the character... wasn't shown much. If you let us learn more about your character though, if you let us know why he or she was feeling that way towards God, what exactly happened to his or her life that made him or her react like that, well maybe this would have been a very nice short story.

But anyway, I like the way you describe things. =) And the story would have been pretty good. If I may suggest, maybe this should be a narrative poem instead. Just a thought.

So my quick review ends here. This is getting longer than what I had intended to. Anyway, welcome -- again. Hope to see you around. If you have any questions, just leave a message on my wall. Yahweh bless you!

~ Jash ♥