My Book Baby Birth Story, Part 1

My babies, circa 2006. (And no, #3 is not a girl. They all just had these gorgeous curls that I couldn't bear to cut.)

My babies, circa 2006. (And no, #3 is not a girl. They all just had these gorgeous curls that I couldn’t bear to cut. #4 is horrified by that thought, you can see it in his eyes.)

It’s release day for Don’t Hide Your Light Under a Laundry Basket, and to celebrate, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about its birth story.

Basically, I wrote the book that I needed fifteen years ago. Somehow I had gone from being a missionary kid on the sun-drenched coast of West Africa, eagerly sharing Jesus with my Muslim, Jain, and ATR friends, to a stay-at-home mom holed-up in a 100-year-old farmhouse in central Minnesota, completely penned in by Norwegian Lutherans and their endless cornfields. The fields were ripe unto harvest, but those ears weren’t hearing nuthin’.

I can honestly say that I felt like a caged tiger for most of my twenties, frustrated by the lack of ministry opportunities, while completely overwhelmed by the gargantuan task of keeping the kids safe, fed, and moderately clean. I had this passion pent up inside me, screaming to be released, but I was in hardcore mommy survival mode, barely getting through each day.

To make matters worse, the books I was reading on how to be a Good Christian Woman™ acknowledged that lost sense of purpose that is pretty common in the early years of childrearing, but completely invalidated it. They suggested that being a wife and mother was a woman’s highest calling, and that women should invest their energy and ambition back into the home. I’m sure they meant well, and I am in no way saying that isn’t important. But all I got from following that advice was codependence and a misplaced sense of identity.

Our identity as Christian women isn’t in the roles we play, be it wife, mother, or something else. Our identity is in Christ, and our highest calling is always and only to follow him.

Anyway, I struggled through my decade on diaper duty and started dipping my toe back into the wider world when my youngest went to preschool. Part of this was by choice—like my decision to go back to college and finish my BA—and part of this was by necessity—because when the economy crashed in 2008, I needed to find a way to supplement our income. I started doing freelance writing (because I could do it from home, and honestly, because writing was my only marketable skill), and little by little, my world broadened back out. It was such a relief to finally let those words out of my head and heart and into the world!

I got the idea for Don’t Hide Your Light under a Laundry Basket about four years ago, in a hotel room in Nebraska at about one in the morning. (Aaron and I have four kids, and we’re too cheap to spring for a suite when we’re just trying to get to grandma’s house as quickly as possible, so needless to say, I don’t get much sleep when we’re traveling.) Anyway, I was lying there with a tiny set of feet digging into my back, listening to five males snore and pondering the many ways in which driving across Nebraska is a fitting metaphor for motherhood. And suddenly, a light bulb switched on in my brain. I grabbed my notebook, navigated around the kids strewn across the floor in sleeping bags, and locked myself in the bathroom until about four in the morning, scribbling down my ideas.

I’ll save the details of how I got the book published (not to mention written, which was no small feat) for another post. But for now, I’m just so happy that my book baby has officially come into the world! You can order a copy here if you don’t have one yet. Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

 

 

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