Hallelujah! I sold a book!

 I've been a lay worship leader since 2013, and since 2015, I've been working almost every Sunday at the United Church in Oxford, Nova Scotia. 

It's work I enjoy doing, and seem to have an aptitude for, as it uses my training in teaching, broadcasting and journalism, and my skills in researching, planning, writing and presenting. I have never aspired to be more than a lay worship leader, never wanted to become a minister. What I enjoy doing is creating worship services -- planning the words and music for worship -- and that's what I'm satisfied doing. 

So it's interesting that this church I serve has a huge stained glass window at the front of the church, over the choir loft, that features a traditional (and rather fancy) Jesus Christ in the centre, while all the people around him are modern to the time of the window's creation, likely the 1940s. (If you look at most stained glass windows in the churches, they usually depict Jesus during his lifetime.) It's rather remarkable to have this modern stained glass depiction of men and women and children as labourers and managers and parents, etc. (There's no diversity, of course; everyone, including Jesus, is white and falling into traditional gender roles).

My point is: There is a writer in the stained glass window. A journalist. Someone struggling to write a novel. Someone rewriting their memoir for the fifth time. I've always felt this was "a sign" I was in the right place doing the right work. 

And once you hear my news, you may agree. 

Because I have sold my second book. After four years of pitching a memoir, a collection of essays and a novel, after four years writing and editing and submitting, after four years of not hearing back or getting rejected, I sold a book in a month. In one year, I did the work, pitched the idea and sold the book. 

! 

Last year, from January to June, I did a sermon series called "The Alphabet of Faith". 26 Sundays, 26 letters. 

And next year, those 26 sermons will be published as 26 essays in a book called "The Alphabet of Faith". It will be published by Wood Lake Books, a Canadian publisher based in British Columbia who has been publishing books about faith for over 70 years. They are a progressive Christian publisher which is why my second book and I are a great fit. I'm really looking forward to this new publishing experience. 

I'm delighted. I'm relieved. I'm excited. I'm apprehensive. This is really going to put my spiritual writing out there in the world in a way I've never been brave and daring enough to do. But there's no point in holding back or being scared -- I've made enough mistakes in the past ten years that I've learned important lessons (double-checking EVERYTHING being one of them!) so I'm going to head out onto this new path with trust and joy and total confidence I can do this. And more. 

Amen to that!