This post is for my friends on Facebook, who are clamoring to know what God revealed to me this weekend that has me so excited.

What He revealed is the book He wants me to write.

I’ve been trying for a long time to figure out what big story I had to tell. I’ve always suspected I had the words and ability to tell the story, if I could just figure out what that story was supposed to be. This blog started as a playground for me to write a little here and there, while I searched for that blockbuster idea. Then finally, for the past year and a half or so, I thought the big writing breakthrough would be the project I was working on with a friend. But recently that project fell through, and I unexpectedly and disappointingly found myself back at square one.

But isn’t it amazing how when one door closes, another one opens? Several months ago, through a series of events, I learned about a local Christian writer’s critique group that meets at a church near my home. I did not do anything with the information at the time; I was intrigued, but I filed it away as something to pursue at some point in the future.

Through another series of events, that future happened this weekend. I attended my first meeting with a friend who was also interested, and Internet, I felt like I had found my people! The group has about 100 members, 40 of whom are published. They have a lot of success stories and apparently a reputation in the Christian publishing world of being a serious critique group. As a “fly on the wall” first time attendee, I found the feedback given to others to be incredibly constructive… things I could easily apply to my own writing.

I came away so motivated, and also feeling pained over having a talent I know I am not using, and just a million percent certain that there is a book in me somewhere, if I could just find it! I came home all fired up to figure that part of it out. God didn’t make me wait very long. In fact, it was not even 24 hours before I unequivocally got my answer.

Here is how it happened. I was sitting in church on Sunday morning, listening to the sermon, minding my own business, when like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere, completely unrelated to anything, God jolts me with this thought: “You have to write a book about your personal faith journey.” And even as my eyes immediately start welling with tears and I start literally trembling as I am sitting next to Kent because I understand beyond any shadow of a doubt that God is speaking to me (that is no exaggeration), a small part of me is trying to argue back. I could barely gather the courage to publish that single, very personal entry on the subject in this blog a couple of years ago, and now I’m supposed to write a book about it?? I’m not qualified for this! I haven’t done anything or overcome anything worth talking about. Who would read such a thing?

It’s a good thing our preacher was near the end of his sermon, because I didn’t hear a single word he said after that.

Despite my reservations, my mission is clear. They say to write what you know, and this is absolutely what I know. I know I’m the kid who went to temple with her Jewish friends far more often than she went to church growing up, who became a tentative adult believer who remained stagnant for many years, and eventually blossomed into someone who has a very sincere heart for God and a desire to keep learning more.

There is much more to this revelation that eliminated any lingering doubt, but I don’t want to spoil the book. Suffice it to say that God also revealed that he’s been planning this for me for a long time, and it turns out that in bits and pieces in a variety of places (including this blog), I have been writing the building blocks for this story all along, and I didn’t even know it. A lot of it I’ll have to refine and reshape into the bigger context as I figure out how to tie it all together and write it in a way that speaks to other people, but much of the raw material is already there. And God is already pouring the ideas into my head to fill in the blanks.

At the same time, it’s a scary prospect. It feels like a risk, and also somewhat self-indulgent, to write a memoir rather than a work of fiction, which was what I had been expecting God to give me. And I’m still not sure that I am mature enough in my faith to be a credible witness. I have so much still to learn from others who understand far more than I do. But I know I have to write it, even if no one else ever reads it. If nothing else, I hope the act of writing about my imperfect journey helps me explore and deepen my own faith even more. Maybe by the time I’m done with it, I will be credible. I dearly hope so.

In the meantime I’ll be attending those writer’s group meetings, and soon I hope to have a chapter or two of my own to start bringing for critiques. I can’t wait!