So...yesterday I started writing a book

I was sitting right here at the Barnes and Noble. Using this laptop, a notebook, and drinking an iced tea from Chick-Fil-A.

I sorta feel like if I tell you, then it will make it more real. More believable.

Friends and family have been telling me for a while now that I should write a book. But isn't that a nice thing you just say to someone you love? When we see someone with a crafty talent, we say, "You should sell those." When we have a friend who is a great chef, we say, "You should open a restaurant." And so I've understood that when people have said to me, "You should write a book," they were, in essence, saying, "I see a gift in you that I don't have and that I appreciate."

Right? And so I knew those many voices were indeed encouraging, but not the One voice I needed to follow.

The way the Lord leads me is always, in retrospect, so natural and appropriate. Before He leads me, I tend to feel confused and foggy. I've wondered for a long time if He would ever prompt me to write a book. I've tried to guess at what it might even be about, if He did, seeing how I had no idea of my own. But suddenly, I have a vision. And it's a familiar feeling: when He finally does reveal step one of a new journey, it makes so much sense.

Amazingly, God never seems to ask me to do something that I'm not feeling at least a little equipped for already. I'm not overwhelmed. I'm not freaking out. It doesn't even seem like a big deal. His plans for me so often feel like the next natural step. His yoke is easy, His burden is light.

And so it has been with beginning a book.

Despite the new feelings surfacing, the new questions and insecurities I'm facing, writing this book feels like the next natural step. And that helps a lot when I sit down and laugh to myself that I have no idea what I'm doing, and realize this is harder than I thought. Because I know He's hemming me in, going before me and behind me. I'm safe in His will, no matter how rough the road may get.

So friends, help me remember all this if I forget along the way.

And tuck away the truths for where you are in your own journey. He goes before you, making a way for you to take the next natural step. Do you know what it is, and do you trust Him?

"For I KNOW the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.

"Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you.

Plans to give you a future and a hope."

Jer 29:11