“I don’t think this is funny,” I told God when I saw my classroom assignment at Mount Hermon. What were the chances of being put back in the same classroom where my breakdown began?

Creekside. 

For a moment I stared at this name on the wall where I would spend the next three days learning the ins and outs of social media and blogging. Mount Hermon has lots of classrooms. I couldn’t believe I was back in Creekside. The windows were open and I could hear the creek rushing past the building.

“It’s just like you making your horse cross the creek. This is the way we are going up the mountain and you just need to trust Me,” God seemed to whisper.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for… Hebrews 11:1, arose in my thoughts. I certainly had some hopes in returning to Mt. Hermon. The first and foremost being God would guide me here. Apparently, God was speaking in horse language and talking to me about foxes, too.  

I’d told my prayer partner and companion for this trip, Kay, that returning to Mt. Hermon was like getting back on a horse for me. Kay also knew my fox story and when we stopped in Vacaville to eat lunch and shop a bit before driving onto Mt. Hermon, Kay bought me this little fox key chain since my book Farming Grace opens with a little fox story.

God has used my love for animals to make his point many times in my life. I understood this crossing the creek thing. My horse Soda Pop was afraid of creeks when I first got him. He was a working horse from Mexico. The vaqueros who’d used him harshly ran the rodeos. Soda wasn’t scared of big, mean bulls, but water frightened him. I’m not sure Soda had ever seen a creek until he came to California, let alone been forced to cross one.

In the mountains where Scott and I like to ride, there are plenty of creeks. Poor Soda was so upset by our first creek. It took me awhile to get him across it. On that particular ride we were headed for Summit Lake. God brought that Summit Lake ride to mind as I stared at that word: Creekside on the wall before walking back into that classroom at Mt. Hermon. My first session started Wednesday night. A few hours later, I returned to my cabin a bit shaky, but encouraged. I’d crossed the creek without anything bad happening.

Kay prayed with me and we went to bed.

I woke at four the next morning. My favorite part of Mt. Hermon is rising early to spend time with Jesus. For half an hour I prayed in my bed, then got up and dressed in the dark because I didn’t want to wake Kay. Putting on my Uggs and stocking cap with jeans and a big sweater, I took my Bible and journal down to the chapel. The photo below was taken after the sun came up. I love this tiny, 100 year old church nestled in the redwoods. The Lord has never failed to meet me here.

Later in the day, after my class at Creekside, Kay and I walked around enjoying the flowers. Spring was in full bloom, the weather warmer than I’d ever seen it at Mt. Hermon. I reconnected with some of my writer friends and even had lunch with Robin Jones Gunn. It was Gunn’s book: Victim of Grace that helped me surrender to writing my own nonfiction book. Gunn shared that writing Victim of Grace was hard for her. She liked hiding in fiction, she told me. I so related to this. It felt kind of surreal to sit with her at Mt. Hermon talking about our “grace” books. Thank you my dear friend, Judy Gordon Morrow for making this lunch with Robin happen.

I was supposed to meet with my literary agent that afternoon too, but Karen got caught in traffic and had to postpone our meeting. We rescheduled for the following day, agreeing on meeting at the central lounge. Friday was my day of departure. The main conference was just getting started as I was wrapping up the Head Start program in Creekside.

I’d returned to the chapel early that morning, bringing along my worship music. I’ve never run into anyone in this tiny church and decided to hold my own little worship service at 5 am. After praying and reading my Bible by flashlight, I turned on my music. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms has become one of my favorite hymns. As this song played on my mini iPad, the Spirit of the Lord surrounded me with love and blessed assurance. Confidence filled me that I was in God’s will and right where Jesus wanted me to be here. That the Lord would open the doors he wanted me to walk through today.

There was an editor I really wanted to meet before leaving Mt. Hermon, but I didn’t see how this was going to happen. I wasn’t even sure this editor had arrived yet. I’d mentioned to my agent that I really wanted to meet this editor, but knew my chances were slim of this working out.

After my last class in Creekside, I walked up to the central lounge to meet my agent. When I got there, I found this editor I had my eye on sitting in the spot where I expected to find Karen. Wow, I can’t believe Karen set this up, was my thought as I stepped up to the table and introduced myself.

The editor invited me to sit down and said she’d already spoken with Karen about me. The editor asked me to describe my book to her, and I explained that it could be considered a memoir, but I was sorry that I couldn’t say the word “memoir” correctly. Just like I can’t say “library” or “Catholic” or “walnut” right. I spent years in speech therapy as a child and still fumble over certain words. When I say Catholic, Scott says it sounds like calf-lick. When I was a practicing Catholic, my husband used to call me the calf-licker. I never thought this funny, and was embarrassed to admit to this editor that I can’t say “memoir” correctly, and that I didn’t actually graduate from college, either. I left two classes short of graduation because I wanted to be a wife more than I wanted a diploma. And in the pride and arrogance of youth, decided I’d gotten my education in English, and didn’t need an official scrape of paper to prove it.

This editor in her smart-looking glasses graduated from Yale. With a little grin, she said something along the lines of “College is overrated,” and I liked her right then. Before my breakdown, I would have tried to put my best foot forward in this meeting. I certainly wouldn’t have confessed about college, but now I knew I just needed to put my real foot forward since God has freed me to finally just be me, a farm girl with a speech problem, and a passel of kids, who’s written a memoir, though I can’t say “memoir.”

When Karen walked up to us sitting there, she was grinning. “I’m so happy to see you two talking,” she said, which kind of surprised me since I thought Karen had arranged this meeting. After several minutes of small talk, Karen said, “Let’s go do our meeting somewhere else.”

As we walked away from the editor, I said, “Wow, Karen, thanks for making that meeting happen.”

“I didn’t make that happen, God made that happen,” said Karen.

I’d already suspected this from the moment I saw the editor sitting where I’d expected to find Karen. When Karen and I sat down to talk, I said, “What would you call the book I’ve written? Women’s nonfiction? Inspirational nonfiction?”

“It’s a memoir,” said Karen.

“I can’t say memoir correctly,” I admitted to Karen.

“Memoir, memoir, memoir,” Karen practiced with me.

“Can’t we just call my book something else? Something I can properly say?”

“Memoooir,” Karen laughingly insisted. “Say it with me, memoooir.”

Later, driving home, Kay gave me speech lessons. We laughed and laughed practicing the words I can’t say right. I think we both were just tired silly. And at Mt. Hermon my sunglasses broke and I can’t stand driving without sunglasses, so we stopped at at CVS pharmacy and I grabbed a pair fast because Kay and I wanted to beat the Friday afternoon traffic home. The funny thing about this is that for over a year now, I’ve wanted a pair of aviator sunglasses, but didn’t feel free to buy them. Aviators just look too fancy for me. But when I walked into CVS there they were, this inexpensive pair of aviator glasses that fit me perfectly and even had brown lens. I love brown lens and just felt God smiling on me as I put those glasses on. Almost like God was having fun with me.

After dropping Kay off at home that evening after hours stuck in traffic doing speech therapy, Kay texted me: Mem War.

How perfect! Mem War for Memoir. This is how I could remember to say it correctly. And it’s so true. I have these memories that war in me, but now that I’ve written them down in Farming Grace, the memories don’t wound me like they used to.

When Soda Pop and I crossed that creek years ago, we were headed for Summit Lake, the most beautiful place where we camped and rested and savored the top of the mountain.

I don’t know what will happen after crossing the creek at Mt. Hermon, but for the first time in my life, I have peace and joy and sweet surrender when it comes to my writing. Thanks for all your thoughts and emails and encouragement before I went to Mt. Hermon, you are all so dear to me, and God has the reins of this thing.

Now if we could just get over sickness at our house. The doctor has decided we have pneumonia, which can last three months. I feel so bad for our little guys who are really sick again. Our family has struggled with respiratory sickness since January. So appreciate your prayers for healing. And also prayers for Scott who will have a scope done on his injured knee next week.

Last night Cruz was burning up with fever in our bed even after I’d given him Motrin. Cruz began to throw up and I expected Scott to just pick him up and whisk him to the bathroom as he usually would have, but Scott couldn’t move fast on his knee, and Cruz threw up everywhere. When my kids throw up, I throw up. It’s pitiful.

And medical bills are accumulating on our counter.

To say my writing is on the back burner right now is an understatement. Just getting this blog post published was a serious challenge. Thanks so much for all your prayers. God is good all the time. In sickness and in health Jesus is the bridegroom, and he is forever faithful!

Love you, friends!

Here is Soda Pop and me at Summit Lake. I’ve got my bedroll and fishing pole and the best horse ever. This was about 15 years ago. Oh how I miss Soda Pop. I write about Soda’s living and dying in Farming Grace. Hope to share my memoir with you someday soon.