A Dogged Determination to be Faithful

ByKelly Keller

We hope you’ll take a minute with this interview with S. D. Smith. Last year The Green Ember was published in Ukraine, and we were moved and honored to become part of children’s own stories there.

The interviewer, Nadiyka Gerbish, explains, “Just last year, the first book in the series, The Green Ember, was published by Levit in Ukraine, where children are living out their own bold and daring stories and need reassurance not only of the ‘existence of hope’, as one of the reviewers on Goodreads put it, but also of the inevitable triumph of goodness and justice.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Even after the war is over; even if we get the just peace we are praying and fighting for, there will be challenges, depression, depopulation, and lots of arrogance from our neighbors and even allies. There will be land to heal and communities to nurture. And so my question to you is: how do we keep our focus on hope, and how do we keep telling the good stories that are both beautiful and true?

I think you are more qualified to answer that question than I am. I am inspired by you and your nation’s endurance, resolve, fortitude, and commitment to truth and the good fight. I do think the essential thing for me is to look at and through the good examples of our age and others to the true new world that is coming in the kingdom of God. It is in our prayers: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” I can only think of hope and beauty and truth as it works back into the present and that begins in prayer. It continues in other good acts, and in dogged determination to be faithful regardless of the circumstances. I know this in my mind, and it’s easy to comment on. But that’s why I keep needing the stories, because I want to feel it and experience it, even if it’s vicarious through a fictional adventure. I need it.

Your books help the kids learn not only about the existence of hope, but also the existence of evil in the world. Why do ‘dragon’ figures have to exist in children’s stories for them to sound true?

I look at Scripture, and I see conflict and evil here since Eden—even before, in the heavens. I look at the world and I see evil and conflict and a sad absence of safety and ease. In the Bible, we see evil invading kings, enslavers, murderers, sorcerers, witches, and even monsters. I think we need stories for kids that are honest about the world in ways that kids can process faithfully. I don’t think “safe” stories are really very safe in the end, because they don’t equip kids to face the dragons they will certainly encounter.

Read the entire interview right here, courtesy of Riggins Rights.

Kelly Keller
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