Timing...

City of dreams...

THE LULU CHRONICLES

I’m just going to have to tell you what’s on my mind this morning. Some of it is sad. Some of it is pretty amazing. This morning on my bike ride on LuLu was pretty great. The morning sun cast this airy light that longed to shimmer to the touch. The sky was the color of ocean and clouds swirled together into this marvelous blue you’ll never find in a crayon box. LuLu and me left alone with our thoughts.

Then Bam! I’m blindsided once again with the ugly realization that my husband could die. Eight cancerous tumors on the liver is serious. If this treatment he’s receiving from the Mayo Clinic doesn’t work then… I can’t even finish this sentence. I realized that I hadn’t been punched in the gut like this for at least a few weeks. I’ve managed to keep the glums away. I’ve distracted myself enough and busied myself enough to keep that dire thought on the outskirts of my brain.

Then Bam! Another thought blasts through me as real as the first. It hadn’t been about what I’ve done at all. Let me tell you a story. In my early twenties, the Hubs encouraged my dream to write. One day he bought me a book and said, “This book is good, but you can do better.” He gave me a file box to keep my ideas in and note cards. Okay, I know in the era of all this crazy technology a file box and note cards sound a tad Third Century, but there really was a time when an Apple was just a fruit, so deal.  Anyway, I did start writing and eventually I got better at it. I started getting published in magazines and newspapers and I actually I wrote a book that was published, and then another. I’ve written five books (only two published). I haven’t taken the literary world by storm by any means. Then a few weeks ago, an agent in New York asked for an exclusive for three weeks to read my latest manuscript. An exclusive means I agree not to send it to anyone else while she has it. Here’s where the story gets good, I haven’t cried in three weeks. I haven’t been paralyzed by sorrow. I’ve slept better at night. The Hubs and I have been dreaming again about the “What if’s”. This agent’s interest in my work has been a great and wonderful distraction. No, let me correct that. It has been a great and wonderful gift. It has served a purpose greater than the idea that I might possibly sign with a New York agent. It has, albeit only briefly, buffered the Hubs and I from our grief and allowed air back into our lungs and a lightness back into our days. Hope has entered our lives again like little, green, tender sprouts. And the big thought that struck me as I straddled my pink bike was the incredible timing of it all. If I’d had my way, I’d already been signed with an agent. I’d already be a best-selling author. Oprah would have known my name and… but that’s not what has happened. The time was not right.

Bam! “Your times as in My Hands,” says God. He chooses when the time is right. He sees what’s needed and when. He tolerates our whining but doesn’t give in to it. His timing has given the Hubs and me the greatest gift for the last three weeks, the gift to dream again, to hope again, a time away from the sorrow.

I don’t know if this agent will want to represent me or not. I won’t say it doesn’t matter; of course, I’d love for her to love my story enough to want to sign me. But the gift has already been given. It’s has been unwrapped with Holy Hands at just the right time.

If you are a Believer, you understand what you’ve just read. If you aren’t a Believer, you probably think I’m a little screwy. That’s okay. Just hang in there with me. You’ll see…