Well, Friends, I’ve done it.  The formal proposal for More is finished and I’ve hit the send button to have it professionally critiqued.  It is now officially “out there.”  And I am now, one month out from my conference, officially wondering what the heck I was thinking.

The list of publishers and agents who will be in attendance at SheSpeaks, the conference I’m attending in July, was made public this last week.  I have until July 1st to decide who I’d like to meet with.  As I review this list, I am more and more convinced I was completely out of my mind when I signed up for this.  And I am more and more convinced this will be the largest God-thing to ever happen in my life if these little seeds I’ve scattered about this little plot of my life take root and bear fruit.  Ever.

The work I am most passionate about at the moment, as most of you are aware, is this memoir.  More is “the story of the emotional and spiritual turmoil that resulted from regaining 20 lbs after maintaining a 100 pound weight loss for five years.”  Why tell this story?  Why expose myself in this way?  To “offer hope for those who likewise fight the intense inner battle that accompanies a lifelong struggle with food and weight, through exposing those darkest places within me and sharing how God met me there in that darkness—redeeming my appetite, restoring my sanity, and repairing my relationship with him.”

I believe in the healing power of story.  I believe there are women–many women–who will relate to my story in a way they will not relate to the latest self-help book.  I believe there are women who will find hope in knowing someone else has felt the same things they’ve felt and thought the same things they’ve thought but have never dared to speak into existence–and in knowing this same person has found what it is they’ve ultimately been looking for.  And I wholeheartedly believe there are women whose lives will be changed because of this hope.  I believe in the power of this story.

The problem?  More is a memoir.  And the Christian market, for whatever reason, does not readily embrace the genre of memoir, despite its explosion within the secular market.  Which makes what is already a long-shot (5% of all writers ever get published) an even longer one.  But I am refusing to get discouraged.  Because I’ve thrown a whole, big handful of seeds out over this land, and something is bound to grow up from it.

The reminders keep coming, this one last night from my good friend Cindy’s blog: “And then God answered: ‘Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.'”  (Habakkuk 2:2-3, The Message)

It is on its way.  It will come right on time.  I am waiting.  And praying like heck in the meantime.

Because I believe each prayer is another seed thrown out and given the opportunity to take root.  And taking root is one of the first of many desired effects one hopes for when sowing seeds.

Taking root.

Catching hold.

Growing strong.

Bearing fruit.

It aches for the coming.  It can hardly wait…

So be it, Lord.  So be it.

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