God's Deadline
PALE, HER ABDOMEN DISTENDED by her illness, my dear friend cast her sweet brown eyes in my direction and said in a listless voice, “If I were to get better, of what use would I be?” I cried all the way home, knowing I had just said goodbye. My friend had lost her purpose and with it her will to live. Suffering and a sense of being overwhelmed had taken their toll.
BUT, AS I EXPERIENCE the same disease, I find there is something I didn’t see before. Life, even my own, seems to go on with the beat of an implacable fate. Sometimes I stand on the curb and shout at the parade of my life as it seems to pass me by, and other times I find my place and manage to fall into step as if everything were perfectly normal.
AND IT WAS THAT WAY from the very beginning. After eleven years of diligent writing crammed into every spare moment (resulting in two 500-page manuscripts), I was offered a five-book contract as a novelist. Two days after that, I was diagnosed with almost certain death.
I WAS NEAR TEARS as I prepared to meet with the publisher. How could I let this kind man—who of the countless submissions I had made was probably the first person to actually read one of my manuscripts—squander resources on a woman who might not have the energy to do the required edits and who would certainly not live to promote a book?
AFTER I EXPLAINED to him why I couldn’t sign his contract, the publisher gave me a thoughtful look and pushed the papers across his desk to me. “You ought to go ahead and sign it,” he said. “I’ve seen publishing help a lot of sick writers get better.”
FOR MONTHS I had drifted from doctor’s appointment to doctor’s appointment. I could no longer drift. I didn’t know what cancer had in store for me, but I did know God wanted me to finish this book. The publisher’s words made that clear.
FROM THAT MEETING on, no matter where I was, every moment I could squeeze out of my day was now focused to the task of making this first book—which would likely be my only book—the very best it could be. I was in a race. While editing and fact-checking I put my disease and pain aside. The publisher’s deadline for me wasn’t as much my worry as was God’s deadline for me. And I had to finish first.
You’re blessed. Be a blessing!
BUT, AS I EXPERIENCE the same disease, I find there is something I didn’t see before. Life, even my own, seems to go on with the beat of an implacable fate. Sometimes I stand on the curb and shout at the parade of my life as it seems to pass me by, and other times I find my place and manage to fall into step as if everything were perfectly normal.
AND IT WAS THAT WAY from the very beginning. After eleven years of diligent writing crammed into every spare moment (resulting in two 500-page manuscripts), I was offered a five-book contract as a novelist. Two days after that, I was diagnosed with almost certain death.
I WAS NEAR TEARS as I prepared to meet with the publisher. How could I let this kind man—who of the countless submissions I had made was probably the first person to actually read one of my manuscripts—squander resources on a woman who might not have the energy to do the required edits and who would certainly not live to promote a book?
AFTER I EXPLAINED to him why I couldn’t sign his contract, the publisher gave me a thoughtful look and pushed the papers across his desk to me. “You ought to go ahead and sign it,” he said. “I’ve seen publishing help a lot of sick writers get better.”FOR MONTHS I had drifted from doctor’s appointment to doctor’s appointment. I could no longer drift. I didn’t know what cancer had in store for me, but I did know God wanted me to finish this book. The publisher’s words made that clear.
FROM THAT MEETING on, no matter where I was, every moment I could squeeze out of my day was now focused to the task of making this first book—which would likely be my only book—the very best it could be. I was in a race. While editing and fact-checking I put my disease and pain aside. The publisher’s deadline for me wasn’t as much my worry as was God’s deadline for me. And I had to finish first.
You’re blessed. Be a blessing!
posted by Chronic Hope at 4:10 PM
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