by Leeann Wilhelmi
For years people have been telling me I was going to write a book(s). I accepted it at first because I really do love to write. This love runs in the family. Father. Brother. Me. Son. So I began. I completed probably half of a novel before being convicted that it would not be pleasing to the Lord, so I burned that manuscript in an old, scratched up metal pail in the driveway with my kids watching. It was a few years of life and conviction before I would approach writing for what I hoped would be potential publication.
I’ve had some (what I thought were) good ideas that fizzled out after three, four, even five chapters and I’ve been reasonably discouraged over the process. Last night the Lord gave me a vision of a room. Through the window in the door, I could see that it was a type of library and I really wanted to get into it. I noticed a glass wall plate with a handle next to the door, so I pulled it open and saw a lever with a two-inch ring attached to it. I pulled on the ring – first with one hand and then with two – until it released the lock on the door.
As I entered the room I could see books lining the walls from floor to ceiling and on each wall was one of those rolling ladders for access to even the highest books. I chose a nearby book and began flipping through the pages. Odd. Only about half the book was printed. The remainder of the pages were empty. I repeated this and found books everywhere I looked in various stages of completion, but none fully concluded. Knowing now that I was in a library of incomplete books, I raced to the W’s and found my name on the spine of a few books. Knowing fully what I would see, I began flipping through my own authored books. I could feel the frustration flying off the pages, and I returned them to their shelf in this room of disappointment.
I’ve been thinking about this vision, determined to get to the bottom of it, and have come to the conclusion that for me, I have to approach writing as I do most things in life now. I will follow where I sense the Lord leads me, and at least for now, I sense him speaking to me in isolated thoughts. I’m sure at one point, He will show me how they all weave together.
But for now, I’m going to write the isolated thoughts down. I don’t have to know how they all fit together just yet and I’m going to quit getting in my own way. “You want to speak to me about incomplete books, Lord? Okay. Lets go.” We often give people the mental picture of a tapestry. So, so messy on the backside. Strings everywhere without a rhyme or reason, but turn it over and it’s a masterpiece. God is weaving a masterpiece if we let him. We don’t have to know what it looks like right now, but we do have to be still and know.