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Faith, Fiction, & Fairytales @faithfictionandfairytales.wordpress.com@faithfictionandfairytales.wordpress.com · 2026-09-07 · 10:00 UTC

Confident in Christ: Writing With Bold Vulnerability (Feat. Shelbey Kendall!)

Hello, friends!

Today, I am so excited to welcome Shelbey Kendall, author of Not a Fan and Miss Goody Two-Shoes. I have SO enjoyed getting to follow her on Instagram and see her share bits and pieces of her story, and today I asked her to join us with a post focusing on how she has come to write Christian fiction that reflects the brokenness of humanity with authenticity.

I hope you will feel as encouraged and inspired by her story as I have been!

Confident in Christ: Writing With Bold Vulnerability

Hi! I’m Shelbey Kendall. I turn thirty-seven in November, and tiptoeing toward forty has caused me to really reflect on the kind of books I want my name on the spine of. Every day God nudges me, causing me to pick at a layer which has grown over me like some kind of self-protection. A layer I’ve fortified over many years of people pleasing, fears, insecurities, pride, and a desire to be liked. And yet . . .

Ephesians 6:10-11, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

How many times do we attempt to put on our own armor instead of God’s?

I’ve found this to be true in writing books.

Weaving faith into fiction has been something I’ve struggled with. Not because I don’t absolutely love Jesus, but because I’ve learned that Christian opinions can sometimes be the most hurtful and harsh.

I don’t think Christians necessarily do this on purpose. I think there can be a knee-jerk reaction to protect our hearts and minds, especially when our convictions have been shaped through very real experiences. But sometimes, in that desire to protect what we believe, we reach for shame or judgment instead of steady discernment.

And I think discernment can make us both soft and strong—grounded enough in what we believe that we don’t have to fear someone else’s story, and gracious enough to recognize that not everyone’s journey toward Jesus will look like our own.

My first full-length romance, Not a Fan, I actually decided to write without any faith. It’s still a story with no spice or swearing, but I decided to leave Jesus out of it because after writing a novella, It Could Have Been Great, with a Christian character, my own faith was questioned.

And truthfully? Writing without faith felt safer.

That book has received a lot less judgment in reviews. No one has questioned my relationship with Jesus or picked apart what I believe. The only thing about me, as an author, that has ever really been criticized is my writing style. Which, strangely enough, is easier.

Then I sat down to write Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes. At first, I wanted it to simply be something silly. A story where I could poke a little fun at myself and my own past tendencies toward perfection and people pleasing.

And then . . . there was this tug.

You know the kind.

The kind where you know you’re supposed to do something, and you also know doing it is going to make you vulnerable.

I knew Sadie’s story needed Jesus.

Not a perfectly packaged faith arc. Not a character who always said the right thing, believed the right thing, or responded the right way. But a woman who loved Jesus and had gotten a little lost in what she thought loving Him was supposed to look like.

And writing her that way meant putting pieces of my own faith on the page too.

That scared me way more than the daunting task of writing a kissing scene.

So I wrote her burnt out. I wrote about her struggling. I wrote her with the realization that she was practicing religion but not living confidently in who she was in Jesus. And as a recovering Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes myself, I felt it deeply.

I’ve been there. I’ve repeated the Bible verses. I’ve gone to church. I’ve been a “good girl.” Followed the rules. Said “yes” when I wanted to say “no.” Stretched myself so thin into a version of myself I didn’t even recognize.

Yes, I was still Shelbey Kendall.

But was I Shelbey Kendall, a woman confident in the God who made her?

Was I living like I believed He had made me intentionally—with a personality, a voice, desires, gifts, opinions, and a whole life I didn’t have to apologize for taking up space in?

Or had I become so concerned with being good in the eyes of everyone around me that I’d forgotten to ask who God actually made me to be?

That became the heartbeat of Sadie’s story.

She didn’t need to abandon her faith to find herself. She needed to stop confusing perfection with faithfulness. She needed to discover that following Jesus and pleasing others wasn’t supposed to slowly erase her until she became the safest, most agreeable version of herself.

It was supposed to make her more confident in who He created her to be.

And somewhere in writing Sadie that way, I realized I was still learning the same thing.

I also realized God has a funny way of making you recognize . . . He’s not done with telling stories with faith in messy, real ways because while the first version of Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes didn’t include sisters, the final version did. And they are not Sadie.

They have their own struggles, experiences, personalities, wounds, mistakes, convictions, questions, and ways of finding their way toward truth. My upcoming romance, Little Miss Hard to Handle, has some hard themes in which I’ve attempted to pen with reality, grace, and delight . . . because I believe God delights in His children. All of us.

Everyone has different stories. They’ve experienced life in ways not all of us can fully comprehend or even have the capacity of understanding. But we can grow our capacity for grace and love. We can grow our capacity to listen to their struggles and their hurts. We can grow our capacity to become soft with others while remaining strong in our faith.

That’s what I hope to do with my Little Miss series. I want to capture stories where women feel seen and where others can maybe see someone else’s perspective so they can grow their capacity for grace and love.

I won’t do this perfectly. I definitely won’t write stories everyone likes.

But I will write the stories God has given me knowing He has a purpose and plan for them. That He has readers who need my words. That He isn’t limited by a genre, or my struggle to find another word for “shrugs,” or 1-star reviews when someone gets ahold of my book that it wasn’t meant for.

I will continue to peel off my own layers of self-protection so I can put on the full armor of God for what He has called me to.

And maybe, my stories are for you. If so, I am so grateful I am able to do something I love in order for God’s love to shine through.

About the Author

Shelbey Kendall is married to a green-flag MMC who does say cheesy lines, homeschools their three children while consuming copious amounts of caffeine, and hopes to find the time to pen every character that lives a little too loudly in her head. She writes romance with no swearing or spice and writes a middle-grade Christian series called The Sonshine Sister Club. She loves Jesus, pink sunsets, every form of a potato, country music, and date days with her husband.

Thanks, Shelbey!

If you’re interested in Shelbey’s books, check out the first in her trilogy: Miss Goody Two-Shoes!

She’s forgotten what she wants. He’s never forgotten her.

What have you let fear hold you back from as a writer? What parts of your life story have been infused into your characters’?

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