I was reminded this weekend of the night, almost twenty years ago now, after my hubby (at that time the boyfriend-soon-to-be-fiance) and I put our wedding date on the church calendar.  He had come home with me to meet with my pastor, then gone back to his home town for some commitment I can’t recall, planning to return the next evening to spend part of the holiday with me and my family.  I woke up, the morning after we’d put December 19th, 1992 in ink on the calendar, in a complete, full-out panic.

What have we done? I asked myself, over and over.  What were we thinking???  What if this is a mistake??? I could not get my mind quiet.  Questions shot out in rapid succession as if from an automatic riffle—What if he’s not the right one?  What if this isn’t God’s will?  What if this doesn’t work out?  What are we going to do then?  One by one they whizzed through my consciousness, hitting their mark with stunning precision.  I was shell-shocked.

I spent the entire day holed up in my room, frantically searching my Bible for every scripture I could find on peace and scribbling them down frantically in my journal.  I muscled my way through a college basketball game that evening with my father, fighting to keep myself distracted until the boyfriend would be there later.  After his arrival, we spent hours talking in the basement after my family went to bed, working through our mutual fears and ultimately deciding we were going to take this step of faith, no matter how scary it might be.

Crisis diverted, we popped in the third movie in the Indiana Jones series, and set out to once again distract ourselves.  It worked until the final scene. The one where Jones is running toward the room that contains the Holy Grail, only to almost fall in an endless chasm that separates him from his pursuit.  After a moment of freaking out in his frustration, Jones remembers the words of his Grandfather: Sometimes you just have to take a step of faith. Our eyes flew open wide.  Jones steps out, eyes closed, his foot extended over a certain-death fall, and lands on a flat beam painted to blend in with the sides of the crevice.  He scurries across, guesses the correct chalice, collapses the entire mountain, escapes unscathed, AND gets the girl.  We looked at each other in disbelief.  A step of faith. Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  To this day, we joke that I should have gone down the aisle to the Indian Jones theme.

*Dum da dum dum, Dum da dummmm, Dum da dum dum, Dum da dum, dum, DUMMMM…*

Why do I share this story?  Good question.  I share this story because I feel this same panic this morning, after taking another gigantic step yesterday out over a big, deep, scary canyon.  What have I done???  What if this is a mistake???  What if this isn’t God’s will???

I’ll tell you what I’ve done.  I’ve registered for my first, official writer’s conference.  I am going to She Speaks.  And I’ve not done it half-way.  I’ve indicated my desire to meet with publishers.  I’ve registered to have my proposal critiqued.  I’ve signed up for a peer review group.  I’ve registered for a 25-minute consultation for first-timers with an agent to review my proposals and ideas.  I’m going to share a room with a complete stranger.

And I’m going to have to have all of the necessary work done by the end of June.  In the words of one of my daughter’s teachers,  OH.  MY.  GOLLY.

Do I want to do this?  No.  Yes.  No.  Yes.  But there is no looking back now. There is too much work to be done.  Big steps require big effort, and even bigger prayers.  A good friend of mine recently reminded me that nothing worth accomplishing is accomplished without prayer.  LOTS of prayer.  I’ve asked for it.  LOTS of it.  And she’s right—I couldn’t do this without it.

I’ve taken the step.  Now I must scurry across the plank, choose the correct chalice, and pray that the mountain doesn’t crumble around me.

Either way, I’m sure there’s a happy ending to be had in here, somehow…

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