The first part of any journey is taking the first step. Right? Maybe that’s the scariest step for most people. Starting. I know that I balked and got angry talking to God about starting another book.
I like to write. Always have. Like so many I have enjoyed a good story since I was little. I used to come up with these crazy stories in my middle school years, most of which no one, not even my sister, has ever heard about. I spent hours illustrating parts of them.
But I’ve never self-identified as a writer. Even though I literally write something every day now. Poems, fiction plots and blog ideas, talks I might give. My conversations with God.
Writing my first book has been like climbing a very steep,
very scary mountain. When I first talked
with God about following through on my book ideas it was so scary to me I got
mad. Anger seems safer than fear
sometimes.
Stepping out, I wrote a book outline. It still seemed ridiculous. Me writing a book. A whole book. Sure, I’ve started like 5 or 6, but how is a mother of 5 kiddos supposed to find time to write? For real and not just for fun?
Isn’t it crazy? Here I am, one year later having written an entire inspirational non-fiction manuscript in 1 and 2 hour chunks. God meeting me in my broken days and redeeming my broken dreams.
One. Small. Problem.
Climbing to the top of this particular mountain has been a miracle. Several miracles maybe: 1 – I’m alive to write; 2 – Each and every week that I was able to get out of the house to write for a few hours; 3 – God helping me organize my thoughts and providing the insights to record in a book. In climbing this mountain there have been several points along the way I stopped to look back and admire the view, and then I was there! At the top!
I had to climb through a bit of fog at times, common in climbing to such a high peak. Foggy steps moving upward and closer to my goal were still energizing. My feelings at the summit when I had written the final words. Placed the final period. Indescribable.
Having been watching my feet through the fog so I wouldn’t miss a step, I finally looked up.
What. On. Earth?
This wasn’t the top at all. How come I didn’t know that this wasn’t the top of the mountain?
I climbed a really long way.
It was an incredible journey. But
crap. I thought this climb WAS the
mountain.
Yeah, I climbed from sea level to base camp.
The climb up that mountain? It begins from here.
It felt crazy to begin a book I knew I would finish. Scary. But I really didn’t know scary until I finished my climb to base camp. Until I printed my manuscript and saw what I really needed to do to turn my manuscript into a book.
Getting to what I thought was the top but was really base camp, that realization of the largeness of the true climb, reminded me of when I finished treatment for breast cancer. Only minus the whole chemo and surgery and radiation recovery thing.
Being diagnosed with cancer is like being invited to climb a mountain too. Only it’s like THIS and you are running up a steep slope while being mauled by a mountain lion. I have loved this post ever since I discovered it back during my own treatment. The analogy is so apt, especially that part where at the end people are like, “Wow, you are finished!” Only you stand there beaten and bleeding.
There is another mountain to climb. The mountain of recovery from treatment for you and your family. The mountain of daily living with horrible side effects from treatment. The mountain of recovering your energy and stamina. I think I lay at that base camp of ‘Thank God I finished and I don’t think I can take even one more step forward’ for 2 or 3 years.
At which point I was diagnosed with heart failure from my breast cancer treatment. Which was helpful because it gave a name for the fatigue and general feeling of being mauled. Not so helpful in actually getting me up that mountain peak. That second summit called “Thriving After Cancer Treatment.” Or something like that.
So here I am at base camp again. Only for a book this time. The initial journey was much more peaceful :). But it’s still a place of recouping and looking up. The mountain looks so, just, high from here. I don’t know that I have what it takes to climb. I’m afraid. Afraid of starting out and failing. Of falling. I hate to fall.
Will God catch me when I fall? Again? I will only find out if I get off my cot, put on my big girl boots and climb.
