not if, but when

"if i write a book ..." is something i started saying occasionally after a lot of people told me that i should write one. writing a book used to seem like climbing mt everest or wrestling a bull - sure, people do it, but not me. it seemed like an enormously impossible feat. now i feel more confident that i could write a book, because when i see a lot of the things that get published ... well, it increases my confidence that i have worthwhile things to say and writing a book is not impossible.

one of my professors this semester says "not IF you go to london, but WHEN you go then, because you must ..." no one in the class has ever been to london. and yet every day she is still every bit as shocked as the first time she found out none of us have ever been to london. what with my textbooks costing $500 this semester and all the spare cash that college students have lying around, i really am appalled at myself for not jetting off to london for the weekend to appease her.

i'm going to start saying "not IF i write a book, but WHEN i write a book ..." it's one of those speech nuances i need to correct in myself, and hopefully that phrase will turn into simply "when i write a book" and before i know it i will have written a book. (or several, because i've got some clever titles. but it's entirely possible that i have more book title ideas than book material, just like i have way more dog name ideas than i could probably ever use.) another little speech nuance would be how i always say "i just" or "God can you just ..." JUST is a pretty loaded word. others frequently correct me for the way that i use it. i tend to say "oh i just work at ... oh i'm just a hostess ..." or "oh i just go to ..." - instead of making more enthusiastic declarations.

the tendency some of us have to pray, "God just ..." is something i get a kick out of. i say and hear plenty of "God just ..." prayers. like it's no big deal. except you can be sure that little word "just" almost always prefaces something pretty colossal. maybe that's a good way to pray, because what we see as unmovable mountains really are no big deal to God. i don't want anything to ever seem bigger to me than God, because nothing is bigger than Him and i always want my vision to be completely consumed by Him.

so just heal my dad God, okay?
just make him 100% healthy inside and out. just balance out all the chemicals, just heal every wound, just break through in him like only You can. just be Your powerful merciful kind gracious generous self and heal him. just answer every prayer that has ever been prayed on his behalf, because i know there have been a lot. just make him healthy and whole the way i know you want all of us to be. just make him function at full capacity and live, really live, an abundant life. just know my heart and correct me when i'm wrong, but i'm really going after this and i don't want to waste my time or Yours, but You're outside of time so i guess i can't really do that to You. just remember every tear i've shed because sometimes it feels like they've almost all been about him, and just see the ones on my face right now and just heal him, please. i don't want to keep asking for something if we already possess it, so just tell me if he's healed and i just don't see it yet. just do it so that when i write a book about him it isn't just about him being bipolar and it doesn't stop where he is now. amen.

so not IF i write a book, but WHEN i write a book ... it's going to be about my dad and me. and not IF he is healed, but WHEN he is healed ... there will be a book and so much more!

"I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done." Psalm 118:17