It was November 1st—the day my manuscript was due. The words of my book dedication were the final ones I typed onto the screen that morning. It was a mystical previous three days between God and me as I deliberated over the recipients of my dedication. I had spent the previous nine months awaiting God’s downloading of words each morning as I typed my manuscript. On this morning, I awaited clarity about who I would type onto that intimate page.
Writing Out of Zion felt like climbing Mount Everest on many days. This book wasn’t something I initiated. It would never have been a thought had my literary agent not happened to be in the right audience at the right time when I happened to be sharing a small bit of my story—and invited me into this journey.
That first door opened six years ago. God invited me to enter into a surreal dance with Him—a dance for which I would not have gone looking. The possible relational costs would have prevented me from doing that. My family is still mostly Mormon, and I love them and our relationship. Telling my parents that I had placed my trust in Christ alone for eternal life and was leaving Mormonism to follow Him was the hardest thing I have done in my life. Writing Out of Zion felt like I was doing it all over again. My parents, siblings and I have fought for love to reign amidst the tension of possessing differing beliefs, and I wouldn’t have stepped outside of this comfort zone to rock this boat had God not so obviously desired me to do it.
A BOAT-ROCKING GOD
One thing I’ve learned as I’ve followed Jesus for the past twenty-seven years is that He liked to rock boats and was unafraid of wild rides in rocking boats. And, He loved inviting others to join Him in His norm-shattering adventures. His invitation to me was clear, and though I resisted many times in the journey, He beckoned me to continue writing.
God has taken me into the eye of the storm where all the ingredients necessary to create a perfect storm in my soul collided. It has been excruciating and exhilarating, and I am seeing Him more clearly than before. Transformation could not help but occur as I inhabited the chrysalis of authoring my story.
On the morning of November 1st, I rolled my chair out of the study while seated in it with my computer on my lap. I proudly declared to my husband, “I wrote my dedication.”
Reading it to him, deep waters of emotion rumbled to the surface. As my finger clicked the send button one last time, tears spilled from the depths. Sinking into my chair, I wept. I had stepped into the arena nine months earlier and left it all on the floor. I had poured out my heart, mind and soul with the intention that love and compassion would lace each thoughtfully chosen sentence. Cleansing tears were all that remained inside of my emptied self.
