It is finished! (Well, not quite ;)

After five long years, on again off again, I’ve finally typed those two little precious words...The End.

How did it feel? Awesome. This book has been burning in my heart for at least five years. Every time I put it away, it haunted me until I picked it up again. I would become restless and unsettled just thinking about it until I had a chance to start working on it again.

And yet, it felt anticlimactic at the same time. Ten minutes after I typed ‘The End’ I was in the shower and thought of something I needed to add to that last scene, so still dripping, I reopened the file and wrote a few more sentences. I know very well that just writing ‘The End’ doesn’t mean it’s the end...in fact, I know of several gaps and loose ends that I ignored purposely as I focused on writing the key final scenes. There is a ton of rewriting and editing and more rewriting and more editing to do before I can really say, “It is finished.”

But DANG it feels good to have finally written the end! After all these years, I feel like I’ve finally done it. Time to set up another Ebenezer stone...thus far has the Lord brought me.

And that’s another crazy thing...when I started writing the book, it was part of a creative writing course I was doing on-line, and I had to map out the entire book, scene for scene, as part of the assignment.

So when I started writing, I had all the scene summaries there, and all I had to do was write each scene.

But somewhere along the line, I started changing things which meant I had to scrap the last half of the scene summaries because they didn’t fit with the changes, anymore, which meant I didn’t have a plan.

Ack! No plan?!?! I like having a plan.

I prayed that God would show me the way forward, give me the outline so I could rewrite the scene summaries, give me the ending. But nothin’ doin’. Instead, I felt God asking me to trust Him, to write the second half ‘blind’...just let the scenes come to my mind and write what I saw, what I heard, what I felt.

This was a whole new process, and a bit of a scary one, but at the same time, it was so exciting. Every morning I sat down at my computer not knowing what would happen that day. I had an idea of where I ultimately wanted to end up, but no clue how we were going to get there. I wrote my main character into corners without knowing how she’d get out of them, but God provided a way every time...just like He does in life.

It was amazing, co-authoring with God. My characters seemed to come to life like never before in the first half of the book. Things happened that I didn’t expect. I laughed, I cried. It was very bizarre to be writing and reading at the same time. I can’t even explain the process, and it may sound crazy but that’s what I felt happened. My prayer is that that same partnership will continue through all the rewrites and edits, and that God will get the glory because:

“Lord, you have established peace for us,

All that we have accomplished

you have done for us.” (Isa 26:12)

I could never have done this without God’s, but it has been a long journey of believing in what I cannot see. For any of you still waiting to see God’s promises in your life come to pass:

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast

because they trust in You.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord,

the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”

(Isa 26.3-4)

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God,

you will receive what he has promised. For

'In just a little while,

he who is coming will come

and will not delay.'

And,

'But my righteous one will live by faith.

And I take no pleasure

in the one who shrinks back.'

But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,

but to those who have faith and are saved.” (Hebrews 10:36-39)

“If you do not believe, you surely will not last.” (Isa 7:9)

Blessed is she who has believed that

what Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” (Luke 1:45)

Those were key verses that I clung to during the dark moments of writing, and I’m sure I’ll need them in the days to come as I go back through the whole manuscript again and again and again. I can’t even think about what comes after that...I’m just concentrating on getting it to the best level I can.

Whatever happens next is up to God. And from what I’ve seen over and over in my life, I can trust Him with the unknown because His faithfulness endures forever.

Many thanks to all who have been praying for me...please continue to do so as I enter this second phase of rewrites. I highly value your prayer covering!