Story of the Heart: Part 2

Rebecca W. Martin continues the story of the conversion journey of Roseanna M. White, a wife, mom, publisher, and bestselling Christian author.

Catch up on Part 1 of this series.

The Whites have a unique situation as Catholic converts, however. Roseanna is a well-known name in Christian fiction, publishing primarily with Baker Books. She and David own and operate WhiteFire Publishing Group, producing even more Christian novels for adults and kids. And a year before the couple entered the Church, WhiteFire opened Chrism Press, a new imprint publishing Catholic and Orthodox fiction. Why this emphasis on faith and fiction?

“Story is the most powerful thing humanity has to change hearts and minds,” Roseanna explains. “Jesus used parables. God chose to talk to us through stories. Story allows us to engage with others at a heart-level, to ignite sympathy and empathy, to help them see within themselves how to change and go deeper. In order to grow, you have to engage with things you don’t understand. As Peter, one of the characters in A Name Unknown, says, ‘Fiction is truth in a pretty wrapper.’ Story lets you touch the things you are afraid of.”

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Despite being a newly-minted Catholic, Roseanna has to account for the fact that most of her readers are Protestant. “It’s always been my goal to present faith as faith. We all believe in Christ, and our hatred of each other is the sin. I’m continuing to write Catholic characters, only now they’re written with more insight, more accuracy.”

As we wrapped up our interview, I asked Roseanna what advice she has for those of us Catholics who might be struggling with our faith. The reflection she gave is worth sitting with in prayer: “Again and again, I came back to the knowledge that God’s plan for me is good. God sent his Son, who is the true vine, and we are the true branches. But the vine has to be cut in order to graft someone on. We can only become part of the family of God because Christ bled for us. Christ Himself chose to die so that I can partake of immortality. So many things in our world hurt—He hurt first. He never promised that it would be easy; in fact, He promised it would be hard and it is. When you keep your eyes on Christ, the pain doesn’t go away, but you know it serves a purpose.”

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The purpose of the cross became terribly true for the Whites when their son was life-flighted while suffering complications from Type 1 diabetes. “David looked at me and said, ‘This does not get to steal our calling. This is just what God is going to use to shape us into the people we need to be to do His will.’ The cross we’re asked to carry isn’t just a burden. His Cross had a purpose. His Cross was the salvation of the world. Our cross should also be doing something, achieving something. It has a purpose.”

Roseanna, David, and their children may have only been Catholic for eighteen months, but their conversion is the result of years of openness and pursuit of that cross, of him who told us, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

I’m not the first to say it, but I’ll say it anyway—welcome home!

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