Love Notes from God

I was weeks behind on sending various documents to our accountant for tax season. A stack of envelopes containing W-2s, interest statements, etc. had sat on our kitchen counter for weeks just waiting to be scanned and emailed, but everyday I put it off. 

Tomorrow, I’ll get to it. HA! The procrastinator’s mantra . . .  

The day had come . . .  It was the middle of April. While I don’t know when taxes are actually due each year, I know it’s sometime around mid-April. Our accountant had already filed an extension, so I simply couldn’t put this off any longer. I grabbed that stack of envelopes and walked into the office I seldom enter these days. On top of the desk I also seldom use these days is my printer. Lifting the top panel to lay the first document down, a tiny, white piece of paper caught my attention. 

It was an old fortune I’d gotten from my Chinese takeout cookie almost ten years ago. On it was written:

You are a lover of words. Someday, you should write a book. 

I don’t remember the moment I read this fortune or what exactly crossed my mind, all I know is that I never threw this little piece of paper away.
My printer is only about two years old, so before I taped it there, it was stored in various other places and traveled with me to and from the SEVEN other homes I’ve lived in since finding this fortune (yes, I’ve moved a lot). I hadn’t seen this fortune in a long time . . . long enough to forget I still had it, until this very day when I was doing the most ordinary, and dare I say, boring thing in the world—scanning documents for my accountant. 

Seeing this fortune again brought the widest smile to my face. When I first found it 10 years ago, I don’t think I truly believed I’d write a book some day. At the time, I was in the middle of transitioning careers. It was a huge shift—I was leaving the world of broadcast television to explore non-profit work. Not even as a writer, but as an executive assistant. At the time, I had no idea that I would soon discover copywriting, which would lead me to fiction writing. I had no idea that I would slowly begin to dream about writing down my mother’s story or that the world of fiction—a world I always loved as a reader—would welcome me with open arms as a writer. 

But something deep down inside me must have known . . . or at least, longed. 

Something kept me from throwing that fortune away many years ago . . . something I hadn’t yet unearthed. 

Two years ago, when I started writing my debut novel and when I purchased this printer, I grabbed this fortune (I can’t remember where I was keeping it at the time) and taped it to the front where my eyes could see it every single time I sat down to write. I doubt I saw it every time I wrote and I doubt I thought about it all that much . . . but there’s something about a visual reminder that you can do something that will push you to actually do it. 

I’ll hold onto this little fortune, hopefully, for the rest of my life. Not because it has some magical powers, but because deep in the recesses of my soul I know that God called me to write this book. I know that he called me to be a writer, and I know that he delights in watching me chase this call. I also know that God is personal. To me, this fortune was like a little love note he wrote to me many years ago as a nudge . . . a gentle reminder and a gentle call to fearlessly pursue the dream He’d laid on my heart. 

Go forth and write, my friends. As the late Susie Spurgeon once said, “The world is a conservatory. Endless in meaning and awaiting an artist or author to paint, sing and write of God’s glory evident in all things.”