I remember it like it were yesterday. I was visiting my sister. Enjoying a long bath in her sea green bathtub. I loved being at her house because even though I didn’t grow up there, she was there, and that made her house like home. It’s funny how you can be very different from somebody and so much alike. Her housekeeping had my mom’s presence all over it even though Mom was really no longer with us. They cleaned and decorated the same. And so a trip to my sister’s tiny farm house was indulgence of the TLC kind. I was home.

 

It was a much needed break. I had been a missionary of sorts for six years. My Africa had not actually been in a foreign land, but it was a land that required a lot of love, bravery, and rejection. My time there was almost up, our family would be moving soon, and God was stirring something new inside of me. As I enjoyed my bath I heard a whisper, “…the book is about the Marys. You’ve got the research. Write it.” My spirit jerked. And as I had done ever since my hair was in braids and freckles big on my face, I couldn’t wait to tell my big sister. I never could keep a secret.

 

I think this dream of writing a book had lived inside of me since the days when I looked like Laura Ingalls. But the demands and chaos of the blessings in my life had pushed it way down deep until it could come up for air again and breathe. Now God Himself had breathed new life into the dream and gave it purpose.

 

I loved my sister’s response. She simply yet very motherly said, “Okay, but you have to wait to write it until you are moved!” I can still see her stern blue eyes and feel the knowing of her wisdom. I love that she didn’t doubt me or laugh. I obeyed.

 

That was four years ago.