Most of Life Is Waiting

Thursday afternoon I arrived home from lunch to discover my author copies of Informed Consent sitting on my porch. That same night, I walked into a Lifeway store to see if they carried my two new Bible studies and learned they will feature four of the six titles in the Coffee Cup Bible study series in their August four-color mailing to all their customers..."their" being the national chain.

Also Thursday: when I opened the mail, I found an Asia-English copy of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. Apparently the publisher negotiated a deal to offer the book for sale in India, and that requires rewriting places where we mention folks like Howard Stern and Oprah. You know--Americanisms. I had no idea this deal was in the works! (Some have asked what that means $-wise. It pretty much means $0, but it's still cool.)

All this would suggest I have been quite the busy writer. But the fact is, I've not. Well, not lately, I mean. I worked on the studies for 10+ years and sent them to my publisher shortly after the first of this year. I worked on the novel for more than two years, and I sent it off in February. I don't even remember when I sent the updated intimacy book manuscript. But it required months of research, especially when it came to the tedious documentation of footnotes.

So Thursday's events brought a great reminder: Most of life = waiting. For this one red-letter Thursday, I worked a decade, two years, and many months. It just all landed together on one day.

It was a good reminder to me that I need to...keep plugging away on the ever-so-slow PhD. And keep up the vigilance in parenting. And if I keep slogging through all those unanswered emails, perhaps it means I might even get to the end of those. (Dare I hope?)

For what are you working and waiting?