She Reflects :: On Going Deeper

“Let God Chisel” -Lysa TerKeurst, author of Made to Crave

Lysa TerKeurst, Mary DeMuth, and three other industry veterans sit at the front of my hotel conference room, sharing candidly about the journey to publication. My journey to sit in this room on this particular Saturday afternoon has taken four years, yet I hardly hear their voices over the tempest swirling inside me. How can I feel so confident in my place here, yet so miserable in this moment? Lord, what am I missing?

With four years blogging experience, a slew of positive input from my tribe, and a growing heart to communicate God’s message, I arrived at She Speaks on Thursday night with a blog-series-turned-book-proposal and a pair of appointments to introduce my Grand Idea to the publishing world. It started out as an academic idea, just a chance to go through the experience of writing a proposal in order to best squeeze every drop of benefit from this amazing conference. But then the proposal developed a life of its own, and I began to believe in it. Although I acknowledge the diminutive size of my growing platform, and the sophomoric quality of the presentation, I still intended to walk into those appointments with my head held high and give those editors my best pitch.

Until I unpacked my suitcase.

During flight, something in my toiletries bag leaked. Soaked with dampness--saline? body spray? hard telling--my blue bag then bled on the clothing around it, including my one nice white shirt, my chosen comfort uniform for that first publishing appointment. I felt a little heartsick, but almost immediately I took a deep breath as I heard a whisper, “What will you choose?”

The God who flung the stars into the sky, who coordinated my arrival at this conference with my particular dreams and hopes, this same God knew that blue bag would bleed on that white shirt. And he brought me here anyway. I could choose to fret in this moment. Believe me, I considered it. Or I could choose to go deeper with God, to trust that clothing would not change a single detail of my upcoming agenda. I chose to go deeper. And as I continued to unpack, I found I had packed a sweater to wear over the white shirt. The blue bleed spot would not show anyway.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Until I ran into another hiccup.

Friday morning, I scheduled myself with some quiet time to prepare for my first appointment. As my anxiety grew (despite my best efforts to quell it), I showered and began to dress. Suddenly I realized the hotel room lacked a hairdryer. What? I searched the bathroom, then moved into the main room. Closets, drawers, under the beds, inside the microwave. Nothing. I returned to the bathroom and took a long look at my scary toweled hairdo. Lord? Do you want to walk through this with me also? Is this another moment you want me to choose to go deeper?

I took a breath, made peace with the scary hair. Even if I could not otherwise solve my problem in the 90 minutes before my first meeting, I knew God had brought me here, had known of this adventure, and would be honored only by a choice not to fret over this detail. And in that moment, as I turned to my toiletries bag hanging from the wall shelf, I discovered another bag hanging behind my bag. In it, I found a hairdryer.

Both moments--the blue bleed marks and the scary hair threat--seemed small in the moment, but as I sit in the hotel conference room, pondering my first publishing industry experience, these moments rise up from my memory and speak once more, “Will you choose to go deeper?”


Coming Thursday: She (Finally) Reflects on the Proposal.