I was reading a blog post about the gift of prophecy the
other day. I’m fairly certain that I don’t possess it myself, and I can only
think of a few times in my life where someone spoke something (possibly)
prophetic over me. As I read this post, all I could think was how I longed to
hear a prophetic word: something that would give me hope and direction. It has
a half-hearted prayer – the sort that is more of a thought directed at God than
a fully-formed, clearly articulated word.
Then I went back to my low, dark place. I’m getting pretty
comfortable there.
Yesterday afternoon, a Facebook message popped up on my screen.
Sally is a friend from my early days of teaching, and our lives have criss-crossed
and bumped against each other many times in subsequent years. The first words I
saw were “dream”, “you”, and “job”, and my heart both flipped and sank. I knew
it was a God thing immediately. This is
God telling me I need to go back to Ohio and get a teaching job.
But no. She told me she’d had a dream that I landed a dream
job – and it was so vivid that she woke up and checked Facebook to see if I’d
posted anything. “The general message,” she told me, “is that you will be
blessed beyond measure in an incredible way. Your faithfulness and courage will
be rewarded. Your joy will be restored. Your good works are seen.” Now I can
promise you that another English teaching job is not my dream job. Nopity,
nope, nope. The only dream job I have is one that allows me to be present with
my children most of the time, not away from them. A job that will allow us to
travel together, to have adventures. Really, my dream job is working as a
writer, although it took me decades to possibly acknowledge that. Everyone
wants to be a writer, right?
Just the day before her message, I’d summoned all my courage
and sent a query letter to the agent who represents Jen Hatmaker…because if you
don’t know where to start, you might as well start with the best, no? It was
the only agency I’d found that didn’t blatantly state they weren’t accepting
unsolicited manuscripts. I told Sally that, and she was convinced it was no
coincidence. “I’m not prophetic. I don’t have dreams,” she told me. “But I’ve
been praying for you.”
Not even five minutes later, I got an email from the publisher.
Spoiler…this is totally not going where you think it’s going. It was a personal
reply, but it let me know that they weren’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts.
It did, however, give me some resources to help me get started in publishing.
I know. I totally wanted to hear “We love your blog! Let’s
talk on the phone! You have a future in this industry.” That would have been
too easy and obvious, I suppose. Had I received that email before Sally’s
message, I think it would have fully deflated me. Like every other door I’ve
tried in the last month and a half, it was locked. But instead, I took it as a
stair step. I sent the first email. I swallowed my fear. I stated out loud that
I’m going to pursue this thing I am totally unqualified to do. I was oddly
encouraged by the rejection.
Then I remembered my half-prayer from a few days before. I
prayed for a prophet to give me direction. God sent someone…someone who doesn’t
consider herself a prophet, just like I don’t consider myself a real writer.
That’s all I have for you. I don’t really know my next step.
I don’t know if I should write more, or do more research into the publishing
industry. I don’t know anything. But I’m going to claim that prophecy, for
whatever it’s worth.
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