I use my sunroom even in the winter. Daft, I know, but I like sitting among nature for quiet times. Around early December last year, it started to get cold enough for a heavy coat and hat. Even so, I got chilly after a few minutes of sitting. I only wear a pair of light Mary Janes with socks. They wouldn’t be acceptable for going out anywhere else in this weather, but I didn’t want to bother with heavier footwear. It would only be for a short while, I told myself. I could tolerate it.

When my daughter came home from college for her winter break, she confronted me during one of my daily outdoor retreats.

“Why aren’t you wearing the slippers?” she said.

I looked at her blankly. “What slippers?”

“The ones I got you for Mother’s Day.”

Then I remembered. She had bought me a pair of heated slippers, specifically for the purpose of my sunroom excursions in winter, because she had seen me huddling in the past. Since she had given them to me in May, I’d put them away until the colder weather and forgot all about them. Even after she reminded me, I tried to convince her, and myself, that my feet didn’t get very cold. Again, I did not want to bother with pulling them out of storage and re-acquainting myself with the instructions. (There are battery-operated heating packs involved.) Finally, after a few more days, I acknowledged my numb feet and decided to seek them out. It did take some effort, but I soon put the slippers on.

AAAAAAH-lelluia! Bliss for feet!

The marvelous footwear not only kept me toasty warm but massaged my trotters and made them super comfortable. And to think I had this wonderful treasure, exactly what I needed, and I struggled against using them for petty reasons. I had a similar revelation about a month later.

A Confluence of Wondrous Things

At the end of January, I went to Austin, Texas for a novel marketing conference. It was a marvelous experience. I met my people and learned a great deal. During one of the break-out exercises, we listed our assets and liabilities as writers. I braced myself for a decided deficit but discovered just the opposite. When tasked to consider my circumstances in their totality, I identified many advantages that I had not properly appreciated before. And of course, God is my greatest boon in any endeavor. In addition, I also realized that, aside from the obscurity that all new authors face, my only liability was fear. Dread of failure, criticism, hurt feelings, and any number of real or imagined terrors had kept me from scribing the persistent story that pursued me like the Hound of Heaven for years. Now, at the cusp of publishing that story, I again struggle with doubts and “cold feet.” Perhaps the only thing to fear really is just fear. And maybe I already have the cure for that too (2 Timothy 1:7). It was as if I saw the largeness of my life beyond the supposed exterior… like a Tardis.

I am so grateful to be reminded of these truths. Yet I suspect other expediencies will cover them too soon, requiring new doses of needless pain to reveal again and again… till we have faces.