In the Middle Places
A decade ago.
I write those words and I look at them.
They represent a span of time. Sometimes decades roll by and we have to stop and think about what was going on in our lives then.
But for me, not the past decade. Nope. This one stands alone.
A year or so before the main unraveling took on a life of its own, I remember standing on the side of a mountain in Honduras looking around at the mango trees, the coffee plants and listening to the birds squawking. There seemed to be a fog all around me but if you looked closely, you would not have seen it. This fog was internal.
Life had slowed down after the intense Hurricane Katrina relief work I had been involved in for almost two years. But something was amiss. My marriage wasn’t well. I could sense there was something much deeper than other challenging seasons we had survived. This one was different.
I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t put a finger on it but I was scared.
So I prayed. I asked God to show me the way to survival. How to make sense of what was happening and how to take the next step. In my prayer, I remember speaking out loud to God – “God, I don’t understand what is going on, I don’t know what is happening and I don’t know how this is going to end. But God! Hear me. Hear my heart. Please don’t let whatever this is – be wasted. Teach me Lord. Show me. Use me. Just don’t let “this” be wasted.”
One morning I found myself writing. I had never considered journaling before in my life. This was a completely new experience. There was something odd about pulling the threads of conversations I had only ever had with myself – in my head – and weaving them together on paper as stories.
The year rolled by and somehow this new thing of writing became a huge part of me. I wrote and wrote about how God kept showing up. How I would discover Him in the most random places and experiences. My broken heart found comfort in the process.
Then divorce met me face to face.
I could barely speak the “d” word. I carried such shame. Humiliation slowed my pace and I stopped moving. My writing slowed down. I was having trouble finding God these days. How could He be in such a mess as this? My voice had vanished.
Another year passed and my writing began to flow slowly as my heart broke in many more ways through the death of my mom and the great loss of others in my life.
But writing kept its claws in me and one day a friend asked me if I would go to Telluride, CO with her to a writing retreat. Mercy.
Yes, I went and there I met other people who love to write. I went back to our trusty leader two more times in the next few years, meeting with her in Whitefish, Montana.
Then I realized the notebooks were filling up with stories. A stack of them.
Every time I filled one up, I would just start another one. I realized one day, I had four manuscripts written.
I was prolific at writing but failing at completing and publishing a book.
It was in that space of time I met a woman who would become my coach. “We have to work on your website Janet” she said. “Write me a seven day devotional and we will build a lead magnet so people will receive the devotional as an incentive to subscribe to your website” she said.
I did.
“Janet, write me seven more” she said.
I did.
“Janet, how long do you think it will take to write twenty?” she asked.
In about a month, I texted her to let her know I had finished twenty “chapters”. And then she asked me to write ten more.
When I announced “finished”, she announced “we have a book”.
We hired an editor who would take my book through the self publishing process. Whoa. What was happening?
We talked about a book launch and hiring a social media specialist who would manage the team.
And we now have entered that process.
This is where I am asking for your help. I’m learning as we go how to build a team of you who would be interested in helping me launch this book which is uncannily like birthing a child. Meet my book baby.
It took almost year to complete the process and find ourselves here.
Would you be willing to come alongside us and face this next part of adventure as a team member?
You are committing to buying and reading the book. We will provide you with social media graphics and great ideas for promoting the book on your facebook and Instagram accounts.
You will receive some pretty sweet thank you gifts from me too! Who among us doesn’t like surprises?
We have a private facebook group you will be a member of and there we will teach you how to promote Between the Valley and the Mountaintop – Glimpses of God in the Middle Places.
If this Janet today could have placed her arms around the Janet standing on the side of that mountain that day, I would tell her we were going to be ok. I would tell her this was going to be really hard.
I would tell her how we were going to meet God not only in the valleys but among every middle place along the way.
We were going to have an adventure we would never have written – ever. But we are not the story teller of our lives. God created us with a story written only for us. May we each follow so close to Him that the author of our lives shines through ours.
May the world know Him because we walk our journey with Him. We walk, following the greatest Guide there is, the greatest there ever was and the greatest there ever will be.
Please pray with me as we begin this journey together. Pray that this book will find its way into the hearts God has been preparing, into the hearts who have been wondering where God is as they wander aimlessly and into the hearts of the everyone who wants to know more about this God who loves them deeply and grow into genuine relationship with Him.
From the valleys through the middle places on our way to the glorious mountaintop He has prepared for us, we travel together.
You can join our private facebook team by following this link. You are very welcome here.
Join our online launch team here and explore the messy middle places with me: https://www.facebook.com/groups/middleplaces
Janet