During her years as a graduate student at the Iowa Workshop, Flannery O’Connor kept a prayer journal in which she shared with God her concerns over her mediocre faith and her ambition to write. Through these prayers, scripture reading, and theological study, O'Connor began to fear that the only way to become both a saint and a great author would be a path of suffering. She prays, “It is hard to want to suffer; I presume Grace is necessary for the want.” For many Christians, the idea of wanting suffering sounds masochistic. Yet, O’Connor shows through her fiction and her own life story that suffering may be a call by Grace.
Jessica Hooten Wilson is an associate professor of literature at John Brown University. She is the author of three books and is currently preparing Flannery O’Connor’s unfinished novel for publication.