Good morning, God

So, here we are, the third Saturday in July. It’s been a busy summer so far, with my husband being mostly out of town since mid-March and home only every other weekend or so (a work-related class on satellite communications at a nearby Army base), and almost-weekly ballet technique classes continuing for 3 of the kids, and two children now in braces, and another having ear problems, and yet two others needing ER visits (a metal spike embedded in the leg from a gardening accident in one case, a broken finger in another) … I have seen my 20th wedding anniversary come and go (July 3), have learned a new dimension to accepting God’s timing with grace and a sense of humor (I’ve thrown more tantrums in the past six weeks than for, oh, at least a year or so??), and have been stretched and stressed beyond what I thought possible without losing my marbles altogether.

This morning, I awoke at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep, and since Troy had reserves (his first weekend doing so after graduating) and I would soon be dropping off my oldest for a week away at a worship dance intensive, I got up, made coffee, and settled in after Troy left to work on my revisions. I’m intending anyway to try getting up with him when he goes to work and seeing if my head is any clearer in the mornings than it has been at night. This morning, I sipped my coffee and stared fuzzily at the screen, and finally hopped over to catch a bit of the last updates on the Fantasy Fiction Tour. After reading Wayne’s and Sharon’s blogs I wound up in tears, thanking the Lord for what He did for the team on the tour, and praying for a few specific friends that I know are struggling with certain aspects of their writing and/or personal lives.

Not much reading/revising on my own work got done, but who knows, maybe that was the whole purpose in today’s early morning quiet.

It’s been a hard summer. Occasionally I think that I really should update my blog, but then I realize I don’t have much to say, and besides, it gets tiresome reading about someone else’s seemingly endless circle of frustration, pain, and humbling. 🙂 Yes, God has had me in one of those seasons. When someone asks me how things are going, I’m barely able to speak, for fear it will just all come gushing out … and it usually does, for some of you more patient listeners. Among other things, right this minute it looks like I won’t be making it to the yearly ACFW conference in Dallas, after all, which is also more of a disappointment and frustration than I expected. I’d planned this year to just attend the workshops, not pitch anything, and really not try to talk to anyone “important” at all … all of which I can do very efficiently from here if I ask someone to purchase the conference recordings for me. And, God has recently and forcibly pointed out to me that when His timing for my stories is right, He’s perfectly capable of putting my work in front of the right people, without attending a conference, or finaling in the Genesis, or even submitting my work to anyone. (I hope to be able to tell the fullness of that story soon, on behalf of a dear writing friend!)

“Though it tarries, wait for it … it will surely come.” (Habakkuk 2:3) Just as I was never really “overdue” with my babies (who never came on their own before 41 weeks gestation), so God’s plan for me in other areas is not behind schedule. Our culture doesn’t have a lot of experience in raw waiting on the natural order of things, but lots of things happen when fruit is forced off the vine before it’s fully ripe … whether that “fruit” is a peach, or a baby, or a book. I just really, really have a hard time with the waiting, and the uncertainty of “if” and “when.”