In a day where technology is racing along at the speed of light and publishing houses are playing the odds on e-books—while scrambling to stay one step ahead of the Twilight-Hunger Games audience, I’m here to make a public proclamation: There still exist those real-life author fairy tales Hallmark movies are made from.
A dream is a wish your heart makes. You know the song. How many times have you wished your words were published? What happens when your wish comes true for someone else?
I’m in the scary season of learning to admit and confess my dreams. Out loud — and loud enough — that my own ears can hear the proclamation. For too long I have been malnourished from a lack of vision because I believed my dreams were tangled up in the briars of of selfish desire. But I am slowly learning to stop choking my soul and to accept that the dreams in my heart have been placed there by God. I know there are women who, for whatever reason, often give room to the lie that they do not deserve to be pregnant. And their souls end up starved, confused, even bitter. Maybe that’s where I have been. But now, even though I’m a man (forgive me!), I’m feeling newly pregnant — at least as a writer. The vision is forming fingers inside me, but of course the lies persist. Tonight, I heard a new heartbeat, though, as I read through John 16. “Whenever a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour as come; but when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more, for joy that a child has been born into the world” (v. 21). Most unpublished writers wish, at least secretly, for a Cinderella story, though we work hard at scrubbing the floors and pleasing the step-mother while listening to her lies. My point is that sorrow and anguish have a place in the story, even as the rest of the world rejoices in their new gowns. But the Spirit WILL move, and there will be joy. In the meantime, where we choose to focus our eyes makes all the difference. I like to think Cinderella was singing her blues to the tune of Psalm 123: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,/ As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,/ So our eyes look to the Lord our God,/ Until He shall be gracious to us.” Thank you very much for your post. I know it’s a few weeks old now, but the best stories always stray fresh and full of joy as they ring with truth. Thanks for helping me through my labor! (P.S. And forgive me for making such a long comment, but you know how pregnancy goes!)