Today was a huge day for the book! I received help from my dear friend Rachel with graphics that are making the new Facebook page look great! I also sent out the first mass mail to everyone who has agreed to write a review on Amazon when the time comes! That sounds so simple, when I write it out… Oh! I also reached out to everyone on my initial list of potential reviewers for the book! 81 teammates secured! That is encouraging especially since I have around 40 people that I still need to follow up with!

I’ve thought a lot today about life and goals and such and I remember in this moment just how much I truly enjoy being part of a team! This book has allowed me to be part of a team with so many of my friends, and will also allow us to be teammates with the hundreds and thousands of people whom I do not yet know!

Can you spell E-X-C-I-T-E-D??? STAY TUNED!!!

There is a thought as I work on this book and do the tasks that support it, “this is too complicated, it won’t be worth the effort, I should just stop.” Yet there are two who know this is a lie-God knows its a lie, and the thought knows it is a lie. The only one who is not always convinced of this truth is me.

I know that the content of this book is good. I know that it will save its readers hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours n frustration. I know that it will enrich their spiritual lives. Yet I sometimes allow myself to be disheartened by the lie. Even though I keep moving, sometimes I let this lie challenge my joy.

I am not going to quit. It’s that simple. I began this book while staring at an empty bank account and a rapidly depleting fridge. I chose to focus on this book because I know that it will help everyone who touches it. So I must remember the truth.

The truth is that everything requires effort. Even sitting still and doing nothing requires the effort of suppressing your own desires and will. Even doing an aimless task requires effort, so why not focus on something meaningful, even when the result of the path appears unclear?

Never let up.

I was standing outside in the freezing cold yesterday while waiting on a friend to pick me up. Due to extreme circumstances this took about two hours (another friend was in an auto accident) and I was struggling quite a bit. Even though I understood the circumstances, I found myself being pretty “salty” about the whole thing! I tried to find something useful to do with the time, and so I began to focus on how this moment was making me stronger; this moment was growing me in strength, patience, and endurance. In the process of this and ultimately singing praise songs, God began to reveal something to me about my own image of “victory.”

Yet as I began to warm up, I began to think about the difference in how I see “good” and God sees good. I realized that I had begun to imagine that “victory” in life looked like a snap shot of the American Dream. Yet God has so much more planned for my life and not all of it is warm and comes with a perfect Instagram filter. A lot of it will be quite challenging, but it helps me to get him know him better, just like an adventure novel.

I’m thinking a lot today about how to enjoy the process, and how to align my vision more and more to God’s. I’m taking my time and moving intentionally, re-framing my why regarding the things that I want and am moving towards.

You may not know this, but this book was not intended to be the book I wrote during this time-at least it wasn’t my intention, God had other plans. I was planning for a book on how to make figures out of pipe-cleaners to be my first book, and it seemed the most lucrative option. I stopped bringing in regular income in September, so it made sense to go with the most lucrative option right? Yet God had other plans! Even as I worked on the other book, I could tell that it wasn’t what he wanted me to work on so I paused the more lucrative book and began working on the one that was most likely to be a blessing to others.

That said it is hard on some days. Today in particular, I was focused on all the ways that I might return to a place of financial stability, so I knew that I had to pause and focus on God. I got out a sheet of paper and listed all of the times that God had provided for me. Many occurred while I was a college student and included stints of near homelessness, miracles regarding tuition, and food when I couldn’t afford it! I could feel the joy of God stirring in me and I asked him what he wanted me to do, with no reservations. He said “Go to the store” and pick up the materials I needed for a side project. I did and was amazed to discover that the most expensive component was on sale for 50% off at that exact moment!

Over the last several months, I’ve lived pretty close to the bone reduced at times to eating seasoned rice. It took me half a year to eat 40% of my bag of rice. During this time I ate the other 60 percent in two months. Things have been hard which has made me lean heavily on God. Yet if I know anything its that opportunities are not our salvation-God is. He uses opportunities, but looking at those and becoming filled with fear does nothing for us. Working hard and staying focused are keen, but faith in Jesus is the most essential ingredient!

Today got off to a good start though it was a bit more challenging than I expected. As a church we are fasting and there was a voluntary prayer call-both of which caused my rhythm to be slightly different. Throw in a slow morning run, biting winter cold, and 1 or two interpersonal matters and it was fairly easy to be distracted.

When I got home, I set to work with contacting friends, and colleagues to see who would be willing to review the book. It was slow going at first, I hit a bit of a rut, but suddenly it picked up. You may not know this but I have a soft spot for transfer students since I myself transferred twice; so I was excited to connect a friend who is transferring to a new school to a student who knows the ropes-which is a huge blessing! Getting to reach out to people I haven’t talked to in a while turned out to be quite fun! I skipped boring intros and tried to have a bit of fun, asking people about their lives and interests. I am very blessed to have met so many exciting people over the years! I’m hoping that everyone enjoys the book, I’m hoping that it is a blessing to them.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for your kindness toward me!

Things are starting to come into focus. I spoke on the phone with a friend who patiently helped me to calm down and to set out the tasks that are required to get this done. You may not know this, but I left my job in September and therefore, there have been a lot of things to take care of.

This time has required a lot of prayer, a lot of physical fitness, a lot of patience, and a lot of persistence. It has been one of the greatest times of my life, but it has also challenged me quite a bit. I hope that this book allows many people to benefit from the tenacity and encouragement that Jesus has blessed me with.

Today I condensed the manuscript and sent them on to a very kind soul who volunteered to review the manuscript. I considered sending them to her without page-breaks for sections because it would take me more effort, but I pushed ahead and inserted them. Using Ctrl+F it took me a whopping 5 minutes. I spent twice that long talking myself into doing it.

So many things require a “shut up and work”mentality. Most of the things that I’ve procrastinated are not that difficult, they just require effort, once, twice, a thousand times. Many times excuses come in the form of doubts. Doubts about succeeding, doubts about competence, all of these are polite ways of saying fear. But thoughts and fears can not hold you for long if you move forward in faith, abandoning the “fear of death.” So I press forward by faith, eager to see who benefits from this book, whose life is impacted and changed.

So, I’ve been working on my first book since October. Bit by it, it’s come together. A lot of prayer, a lot of typing (as a slow typer), a lot of failed experiments with text to voice, and a lot of implementing the revisions of people, who in many ways, are far more clever than I am. Yet writing a book is only half the battle. The time for promoting the book has come!

The book itself is still in progress, but I have begun the work of making sure people know about it in earnest. I went through my Facebook friends and built a list based on the people I believed would be most interested in the book, those who would be most willing to help me for my sake, and those who would be most assisted by it! I could wait until the book is done, but by that time I’d be playing catchup; best to start securing supporters so that I know who will be able to help me with what! After making the list, I put it into Excel and built a color key so that I could track who was in what stage of the ask: contacted and awaiting, yes, no, yes and suggested more reviewers, etc.

Admittedly, I moved very slowly. Even though I knew that most of the people on the list would say yes to reading and reviewing the book, I still had a hard time making the ask. Yesterday built the list and the blog site, but I only asked 10 people (though I had to build the list and that took a lot of time).

Today has been much better! in the first 2 hours I have 14 new secured yeses (fifteen now!), and 12 contacted pending with a reply pending. I’m over a third of the way through the list! The main challenge is keeping sight of the goal and not allowing myself to pat myself on the back and slow up. Prayer has brought me thus far and prayer will bring me home!

Stay tuned!