Many have asked me, “How did you write a book while homeschooling six kids?!”. And many days when I ask myself the same, I come up with this:

How do I describe the way I wrestled for it? I poured out my tears and then discovered how He caught them in His bottle and named each one “purpose” and “truth” or “lie” with the tenderest of compassion. All the while I waited in the wings and others (including myself) called it “depression” “isolation” and “loneliness”?

image I think the pen hit the page for this particular book when I started believing His definitions over mine long enough. I soaked in it, lived in it, fought for it long enough. Oh, and then that final thing: He loosed me. He set His compassion within like a gift even though at the time all I felt was pain.

And I wrote in pain.

Then, as that storm passed there I was. Embraced. It wasn’t just my hand on the hammer.

”Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.”

I only hoped I had written some encouraging emails to my friends, but then He called it “book”. He said, be still (in Hebrew: lean back) and know. I have so much more to learn about leaning.

Yes, there are “practical” things I could tell you about how I wrote my book, how my hours are spent. But for me, the reality of God enabling something has come razor close to my heart mostly through my experience of Him DISABLING things for a time as well.

And the wonder? That’s when the book was really written—in the quiet and unseen, when I least thought I could. Except, oh, how well He sees.

Everyday, still, I am needing some spark of insight to bring it alive in my present circumstances. That’s why I needed to write it down. So, there I go again getting off into the why, not the “how”, but that’s what I need to remember most.

So, I’m probably *not the best* person to ask how to write a book. This part of my story flows out of a broken heart, bound and healing. I tell it because I know I’m not the only one. If you find yourself there, persevere my friend! Every drop, worth it.

Love,
Raynna

This little flower has such a story, but for now, let me say. It’s from then most unplanned and unlikeliest of gardens. Also, it is so very lovely.

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