My Friends Write Books!
About a decade ago I lived in California. Yes, it was wonderful!
I know it sounds cliché and lame, but I was excited to go out West for school and felt like this "upped my cool factor" ...by, like, a million.
My North-East friends and family thought I was sharing a supermarket with Hollywood's most elite, and the native Californians and other transplants from the Mid-West and West Coast asked if I was Amish.
I was flattered and ate it up.
Yes, I see movies stars everywhere! (Not true.)
Yes, I sure am Amish! (Also, not true.)
My Shirley-Temple-meets-Snow-White looking roommate, Jules, and I merged from IN and PA to CA and our most beloved friend, A-Lizzy-Boo came from VA. We were fairly inseparable.
Jules helped us to appreciate Jane Austen all that much more when she introduced us to Mansfield Park and we watched this epic movie while devouring Twinkies on her bottom bunk. Shameless.
I distinctly remember her fainting against our closet door as she pined the loss of her man-crush do to his unsightly chest hair. Wrist to her forehead, slow decent down the door....
Liz helped us to be a little more free: she being a free spirit herself.
We were cool, the three of us girls.
We were.
I mean, I loved our time together.
After a semester, I moved off campus to pursue ministry at the Los Angeles Dream Center and eventually dropped-out of college. The semester after that, Liz moved off campus and transferred schools. Our sweet Jules held her own, graduating first from LIFE Pacific, and eventually from some prestige, seminary school in Massachusetts.
When I had what was no doubt a panic attack near the end of my time in LA, it was Liz who hosted me at her church/house and introduced me to Blue Like Jazz and Donald Miller while reminding me what a some time off and some down-time looked like.
I was exhausted.
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After a few years, I embraced life back in my North-Eastern hometown and befriended a guy who was already friends with my sister, Nicolette. His name is Bob.
He once asked me to read something he had been working on. Nothing fancy, he seemed to be modestly forewarning me before I ever laid eyes on it.
It was great!
Turns out, his secret talent is story telling.
With a knack of offering enough details to convince the reader that these characters are, indeed, standing on this corner, or inside this shop, or eating this meal at this restaurant, his story was an easy read.
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Around this time, Liz, who had since moved to New York, began sharing some of the novellas she was working on and wishing to publish. She was an intriguing writer, because I thought I could figure out the premise or the character's motive before she would reveal too much detail, but I could not.
I enjoyed every snip-bit she shared with me.
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When we were married, the Pastor's wife Gayle, under whose church my Big Strong Man was raised in, published a book called Affirming You. She could not attend either of our weddings (we were married back-to-back Saturdays, first in PA and second in IN), but she did share our name's meanings with us and it was lovely. To this day, I refer to this book often to remind myself and others of just who God calls us when He speaks our names.
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Just recently, a newer friend of mine published a book as well. Her name is Betsy and she is a lovely.
Her book, When Infertility Books are Not Enough: Embracing Hope During Infertility became one of my top picks for My 2015 Book List.
I devoured it in two days.
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There is much admiration I hold for the writing community.
I am a huge fan as well, hence this blog, and would someday love to be counted among those others who have works published.
...it makes for a great post on Bucket List Wishing...!
As of today, I am just about through my favorite Lysa TerKeurst book to date: The Best Yes. Within the covers of this book, I have been so greatly encouraged and challenged to reevaluate my time and resources and see where I am spending myself...because I am not doing some of the things I feel God has placed on my heart. Not with excellence. Not with my Best Yes.
Just like Lysa...I hope I can call her, simply, Lysa...I long to write. I think about, mull it over -repeatedly- and find myself alive with words desperate to come out of me.
This blog has been a lifeline and a spark for that desire.
Through reading, I have learned that I must make the time, I have to.
Facebook, sayonara, you waste my time.
Over scheduling and under appreciation, hit the road.
I resolve to make time for this passion of mine. Reader, you should as well.
As with all things, I believe that God is in the midst. He speaks to us in many ways, when we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.
As I made this resolve, I came across a writers workshop being offered at a local library!
God is in the details, friends!
What about you, reader?
What dreams do you hold in your heart?
Accomplishments you are itching to achieve?
Goals to see fulfilled?
What if we were all fully convinced that it could happen for us?
That it will happen for us?
Would we dream bigger?
Longer? All the best with dreaming!
Write-on!
p.s. You may have noticed that the date on the top does not coincide with the release of Lysa TerKeurst's The Best Yes book. This post was originally written in March and today, July 28th, I have made additions and alterations.
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