“The world admires only the spectacular sacrifice,

because it does not realize the value of the sacrifice that is hidden and silent.”

~Josemaria Escriva

Today I am submitting my book proposal to be looked over by the agents who requested it at the Christian writers conference I attended in May.  Honestly, I’m scared and excited all at once.

One of the great things about the conference was learning that while my manuscript might be great, the proposal for publishing my book needed to go along with my amazing manuscript sucked. Completely.

Why am I grateful for hearing I created a terrible marketing document?

One reason is it’s always better to learn you’ve written a bunch of junk before you press send. Thank you, Lord, for the mercy of learning this before it went out.

The second is I feel like I’ve been surrounded by miracles for the last several months and the process of re-writing my proposal has been one of the biggest.

You see, when I walked into the conference in May I had specific ideas of what I thought I was doing there and what God was doing in me. In my head I had it all planned out. I was just there to learn and initiate opportunities to learn. I was going to be bold in talking to all the new people I was going to meet. I was going to be aware of my body’s needs and honor the demand learning places on it by resting.

And that felt big enough for me.

Not only did God have other things in mind for me at the conference, I had no idea how God was working in my husband at home.

Throughout every talk, seminar, and keynote I felt a nudge to be bold and pitch my first manuscript instead of ducking my head and waiting until I had written more. I hadn’t planned on pitching my manuscript to literary agents because I didn’t feel I was enough: accomplished enough, credentialed enough, having written long enough with a platform large enough. I didn’t want to be that arrogant jerk who just knew she had written a masterpiece on her first try.

Instead God talked to me about the difference between humility, true recognition that I am at the beginning of my writing career and have lots to learn, and lack of courage. Because, let’s be honest, talking to agents and publishers leaves me shaking in my boots.

So, I was bold. And wow, did God make divine appointments for me. It was crazy.

But here’s the deal, I had five other reasons I didn’t feel ready to pitch my book. My husband and I have a kid starting high school, one in middle, two in elementary, and one still at home.

Boy, that four-year-old.

In my first graders class for Mother’s Day this year there was this fill in the blank sheet her teacher laminated and made into a card. It was one of those sheets where the kiddo guesses their mom’s age (apparently I’m 50), favorite color (purple of course), and favorite way to relax (books, precious books).

Little kid answers to anything can get funny but the thing that made me lose it laughing was this question and answer, 

“My mom says . . .”

My seven-year-old daughter’s answer, 

“Matthew, stop hitting people!”

Way too accurate. And guess who is still home all day with me?

How was I supposed to really step into writing more often, say, actually finishing my second manuscript that I’ve be picking at for almost a year, with my rambunctious ninja-baby-Hulk at home?

The thing that was the biggest surprise in all this wasn’t hearing my proposal needed work. I knew it was a mess. It wasn’t getting requests for my proposal and manuscript although it was miraculous.

The biggest surprise was going away to a Christian writing conference and discovering God had been doing an amazing work in my husband.

The writing conference I went to was six days, five nights and so my husband had arranged ahead of time to work from home while I was gone. This meant he was single dadding it for getting four kids to two different schools, taking care of the toddler, making meals and all the chores of a large family, like fifty loads of laundry a day, all while the kids started daily swim team practice that ran after school all while working himself. Since he had traveled for all but four days in April we could call it wife appreciation week if that’s all he did.

On Monday our toddler came down with the cold-flu and became that special bundle of miserable that happens when four year olds stop sleeping through the night. Two days later when I had my first agent request my book proposal, which I knew needed a major redo, I prepared to call my husband to celebrate. But with a little trepidation. Because he might hate me for abandoning him at home with a sick demon, I mean toddler. And because how exactly was I going to find the time to work on it?

On the way to make the call after dinner I ran into a new friend (see, I was also doing my original challenge: make new friends/talk to strangers/don’t be weird) and stopped to say hi. My new friend and I had been talking about pitches the day before and she had been part of encouraging me to do so. Naturally she asked how it went and I told her about the request.

She just happened to be sitting right next to a different agent. One whom I’ve been fan-girling over and had cyber stalked her blog for the last three years. The agent watched me as I told my friend about how the pitch had gone and my pleasure at being asked to submit a proposal. Then the agent did the unthinkable. She said, “So what’s your book about?”

I smiled at the agent with all the respect one might give a velociraptor, because I was clearly taking my life into my hands by answering, but I did. I told her about my manuscript.

Little did I know, the people around that table, which happened to be all women, had talked all through dinner about the need for a book just like the one I wrote.

When I finally got back to my room to call my husband it was not with one, but two agents having requested my work.

My husband’s response?

Honey, how can I help you get the time you need to make this work? I think I can talk to my boss about arranging to work from home two or three days a week this next school year so you can write.

I’m sorry. What?

I expected my husband to be excited for me. I expected him to be proud. But somehow it didn’t even occur to me to consider my husband would be willing to sacrifice for me.

“The love of God remakes the soul.”

~Augustine Thompson, O.P.

It’s not that I don’t think my husband values me. It’s not that my husband has never sacrificed for me. Just, wow.

For the last six weeks, except for that one week he was out of town, my husband has busted his butt to make kids-home-for-the-summer and wife-putting-together-the-marketing-documents-needed-to-make-a book-deal work. And work fairly well, cause hey, I just finished. He helped me clean out space in our bedroom to put in a folding table to work on. He helped me find the money in the budget to buy a few more reference books needed to write my proposal. He cleared out his schedule so I could go out and write at a coffee shop two afternoons and two evenings a week. He took on cooking dinner the afternoons I head out to work.

 

I am so grateful.

I’m so grateful an agent requested my proposal and that it needed to be redone so I could see the hidden miracle of a devoted husband and father.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Josh.

How have you experienced the unexpected sacrifice of others?