Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now

It’s hard to believe, but my book baby will make its appearance in less than three weeks. What began as a seed of an idea has grown to a 282-page work of my heart. I’m so thankful all of you have been by my side during this process.

So much of writing is a lonely road. Many hours are spent behind a screen at the computer, closeted away from the rest of the world. While most of you are lamenting this shelter-at-home few months, we writers are accustomed to it. Writing can be a bit of a solitary life.

But not all parts have been undertaken alone. God put me where He wanted me to be from the very beginning of this journey—one I didn’t even know I wanted to take. Just because one writes doesn’t mean that one has felt that call for the entirety of one’s life. God brought amazing people into my life to walk beside me on this journey.

Most of my life I wrote when the mood struck me, or I needed to write something for a class. Writing was not my strong suit. You may ask then how in the world did I ever get published? By the grace of God, believe me.

My writing was mostly little poems written in rhyme. I’m not one of those deep thinkers who can take all these strange-to-me words, string them together in a manner that turns them into an unrhymed grouping of words that everyone will consider art. That’s just not my style.

When college came, they sent me to remedial writing classes. I was so embarrassed that I only went to one. Just one. How they let me get away with that I’ll never know. I regret that. Not knowing how to truly do something and do it well and right isn’t something of which to be ashamed. I should have stayed. If I had, perhaps I could have taken this journey much sooner in my life than now.

But that wasn’t God’s plan. Or I was too stubborn to listen to Him telling me it was for my own good and the future He had planned for me. Sometimes it would be nice to see that future. But if we did, it would likely scare us half to death.

So here I am, fifty-plus years after that class. It took me a while, a lot of books purchased and read, underlined, highlighted; classes taken, mp3s purchased; coaches hired to teach the big and the little things. Social media coaches. Online classes (I’ve been in one for four weeks on doing a book launch), critique groups, writing buddies, beta readers. The list goes on.

That teacher would probably faint if she knew about Grave Consequences. But, it’s not a surprise to God. He knew from the beginning that those seeds planted when I was a child pouring through the Childcraft books that one day my big sister would say in passing, Have you ever read this author? You’d love her books. Go over to her author page and check her out.

 That led me to the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in 2014, the beginning of this journey. For me, the beginning. To God, it was way down the road. He knew it all along.

But the thing is, this author finally listened. I took my work and showed it to some of the best writers out there just to ask if there was anything to work with. Was it junk? Should I walk away and throw it in the trash on my way out the door?

You are a writer.

 Words I never thought I would hear.

Journey begun, work applied, advice taken, prayers prayed.

Prayers answered.

Friends it’s never too late to hear and answer that call, whatever it may be.

Maybe you’re like me and feeling a call placed on your life was never a part of your vocabulary. It wasn’t the lingo of our household when I was growing up. I didn’t know what that meant until many, many years later.

Writer friends, when you answer that call, the story you tell will be the one someone needs to hear. The story God has for you alone. You’re the only person in the entire world who can tell that story. As my editor and my friend, Eva Marie Everson tells in her keynote address from the book of Nehemiah, No one can take your place in the wall.

So here is my place in this wall. It began with the story of Charlotte Graves and her family and friends. I pray that someone out there will, with God’s help, be blessed by those words, even if only in some small way. If so, I’m profoundly thankful.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.

Soli Deo Gloria!