mining in unexpected places
With God
I was trying to think of how to explain what my life feels like right now and one thing came to mind. It feels silly but surprisingly accurate, so bear with me.
Millennials and Gen Z will be familiar with this, Grandma Evans, I will explain it to you next time I pop by if necessary.
Webkinz were a huge piece of my childhood. You would buy a stuffed animal that came with a code. When you entered the code on the Webkinz website, it made you a digital copy of that animal that you could take care of, dress, and play games with. A magical experience overall.
One of the best games that I know we all looked forward to was the Gem Hunt.
Once a day, you could go “mining”, picking a rock to hack at. Sometimes you found a gem, sometimes you found nothing. Once you used your three tries, you were done for the day.
I found pictures on Youtube to help you visualize this.
Step 1: choose a circle to mine. Please notice the sparkle on the rock that the pickaxe is over. Tempting, is it not?
SLAG is nothing. So, even though that dang rock was nice and shiny, mining it just took one of our tries for the day.
Please make note that the circle we are hovering over now does not look sparkly. But when you mine it…
Look at that huge gem. So shiny and satisfying. A thrill for eight-year-old me.
My life right now, feels like a gem hunt with God. One where I mined an unassuming stalactite in the part of the mine He had led me to and miraculously came out with a beautiful gem. One that I would not have found where I had been looking before. It was not shiny or expected. It was rather unobtrusive, nearly hidden in the back of the cave.
I guess that is what is cool about having God as our guide. He knows where the best stuff is kept.
We all know I “quit my job in an act of faith”. It has been in many a title for me recently. This was God taking me to the back of the mine. It got harder to see for a little while, the deeper we went, but when I mined there, I found something so surprising and valuable to me that my heart burns in my chest whenever I think of it.
A few weeks ago, I finished writing my first book. I am still kind of confused at how it all happened, but every step was so…correct that I just kept going. Since then, I have jumped into the world of publishing. Right now, my time is spent sending queries to literary agents who will (hopefully) be the ones to guide me through the publishing process in return for a percentage of the profits.
I still do not know what my future holds, but I feel like accomplishing this, whatever it is (authorship?), was a beautiful surprise that I never would have done if I were still working full time.
Things are not sure, but God is. I am thankful for this gift that He gave me, regardless of where it leads.
Thanks for humoring me and my analogy. I hope you find what He wants you to find. I hope you follow Him as far into the cave as it takes to find it.
