I thought that I posted this Easter weekend but it was stuck in my drafts. Whoops. I will post it now…

As I write this blog on Saturday afternoon of Easter weekend, my husband and I are looking forward to celebrating Easter through an on-line, live-streamed service, watching while sitting on our couch.  A year ago, who would have thought that we would be unable to gather inside our church to celebrate the Resurrection? 

This need to meet virtually is just so unprecedented.  Still, when we are gathered together to celebrate the Easter Service, I absolutely believe that our shared worship will reach to Heaven just as well as when we are gathered together in person.

Along with recognizing that this is Easter weekend, I want to give you a book update.  When I last blogged, I said that I felt driven to finish and asked you for help in getting up early in the morning.  I need to let you know that something extraordinary has happened. 

I decided somewhat arbitrarily while I was writing that blog a few weeks ago that I would ask for prayer to get up at 5am and it was OK to ask that I have insomnia after 5.  Even while writing the request down, I wasn’t sure I could do this.   There isn’t a fiber in my body that actually wants to get up that early and the one other time I had tried to get up early to write, the reality of doing so lasted about once.

I set my watch alarm on my phone that night after I wrote the blog and thought I would just see if I could.  Well, I slept through the watch alarm and then woke about 5:25.  I thought, well…might as well get up.  I did and I wrote.  My goal was a thousand words.  I did it!  OK, that’s one day down.

Fast forward three weeks.  I have gotten up every single day except for one morning when my husband and I tried to get to the grocery store at 6 am  to get hand sanitizer (there wasn’t any).  Other than that, I am up every morning, sometimes as early as 4:30am but always somewhere around 5 and rarely need the watch alarm. 

As I make my way downstairs, it’s still pitch dark and I use the dim light off my phone to guide me.  I put a coffee pod in my Keurig and while my coffee is brewing I pray for my manna of a thousand words.   I carry my cup, still in the dark, to my favorite recliner, set my coffee down beside me, pull my soft blanket over my knees and turn on my laptop.  The room is completely dark except for my computer screen and as I begin to dive back into the story, I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

I have come to treasure this time alone so early in the morning…except that I think I am not alone.  If I had eyes to see, I think I would see that I am being supported with heavenly help.  I wanted to let you know that I feel your prayers.

I often have only a hazy idea (or none) of what I am going to write when I sit down at my laptop.  In the past three weeks, I have written 22,000 words.  I have about 18,000 words left before it is the size it is supposed to be for a novel of historical fiction.  The basic plot has been written for a year, all I am doing right now is fleshing it out to novel length.

I feel urgency to write; also to finish.  I don’t know why but I feel like I’m running out of time.  Maybe this is going to end up being just for my kids or for my grandkids but maybe there is a young woman out there that I’m supposed to finish this for…who is right now as I am writing this, grieving over losing the love of her life.  I want to help give her hope again.

Something occurred to me after I rewrote the crisis scene this morning.  Where I ended this morning, my heroine is facing uncertainty.  She already went through loss at the beginning of the book and now she faces the possiblity again.  It occurred to me mid-day today that tomorrow morning, I will have her find out that the person she has come to care about, survived the crisis.  When I thought about writing those emotions, I realized that I will be writing about joy on Easter morning.  Mary Magdelene was filled with joy when she realized that her Lord was still alive.  Maybe it’s a coincidence that I will write of joy as well but I also thought that maybe the timing is heavenly.

I end with this painting by Alexander Ivanov…Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene.  Joy follows great sorrow.