(find part one here)

In 2017, I began to think about writing a book. It was a while before I even mentioned these book thoughts to my husband. After all, who was I to try to write a book? Just daring to think the idea made me sick with nervousness. So I decided not to call it a book; instead, I referred to it as a collection of writings.

When I finally plucked up enough courage to mention my “collection of writings” idea to Jonathan, he helped me clarify my goals through several questions. What was my topic? Why did I want to write this? Why would I write something and not pursue publishing?

Through many months of struggle, imposter syndrome (who do I think I am to try to do this?), and tears, Jonathan encouraged me. I prayed about it and God kept burdening my heart with the specific topic of viewing the difficulties in our lives as arrows to point us closer to Jesus. I had real-life conversations where I shared this message with others and listened to see if it resonated with them. It did. And the more I questioned who I was to think I could write a book, the more God kept burdening my heart to just write it already.

This season of my life reminds me of God’s encounter with Moses. God tells Moses what to do and Moses keeps pointing out all his insufficiencies. It’s like I kept on pointing to myself and saying, “But what about this?” And God kept reminding me: “You know, this actually isn’t about you. It’s about me.”

I pursued traditional publishing through several publishers, was denied, and took that as confirmation that my book was a failure and shouldn’t be published.
Then Jonathan said, “Listen. I’ve read your book and I know it’s good. Let me edit it and send it to another publisher.”

He did; it got rejected again.
I decided to pursue self-publishing.

Can I be honest? (Of course, I can; this is a blog after all. What is the purpose of a blog if not to dispel all your deep dark secrets?) This journey of self-publishing was a big blow to my pride. Despite the success stories of many self-publishers, I have this nagging whisper in the back of my head that sounds something like this: “Real writers get book deals.”
I felt a little bit like if my book had been good enough to publish that a publisher would have just snatched it up and begged for me to sign on with them. I mean, they didn’t even have to beg. I probably would have taken a cool semi-disinterested offer too.

Anyway, I realize there are a lot of politics involved (such as how big of a following you have) in writing a book and so I should just shut that nagging whisper up and send it packing. I’m just telling you all this because it demonstrates that God had a lot of humbling to do before I even got to the place where I was willing to pursue self-publishing.

To abruptly end this saga, and because my 30 minutes has already come and gone:
I published my book, Come to Jesus, in February 2019.

Since then, Jonathan has called it my “constant stream of encouragement.” I regularly hear testimonies from people who tell me how God has used my book to deepen their relationship with him.

And that, my friends, is a classic demonstration of how God is able to use imperfect, broken people to bring glory to his name. All praise belongs to him.