When God’s Will is the Sweetest Place to Be {Guest Post by Meghan M. Gorecki}

Today, I (Laurie) am thrilled to host longtime Alley Pal, Meghan M. Gorecki, celebrating the second birthday of her book, God's Will! Meghan means the world to so many as the biggest cheerleader <3 I'm so grateful for her spirit and can't wait for y'all to read what she has to say. Meghan, take it away!

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My Bible fell apart the other day. Not the binding, but a ton of papers and notes and cards from years gone by tucked within the leaves. One that fluttered out caught my eye—a torn piece of notebook paper labeled Publishing Options.

That sheet of paper is five years old, and it listed a number of ways I could see about getting the novel of my heart (then unfinished) published. A few avenues of indie-publishing—strangely enough that did not include the route I eventually took—and the paper also held a list of prospective agents to query when the book was finished.

This list sat for a while near Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Problem with five-years-younger-me, I didn’t keep reading the entire chapter.

After querying no less than twenty literary agents (after two rewrites and one major overhaul), my impatience and frustration got the better of me, and I shoved the novel of my heart far away because I was fed up and feeling like an utter failure after a total of seven years of hard work. And less than six months of over-optimistic/naïve work in putting it out there to gain an agent. May have only been two/three years ago, but oy with the youthful arrogance already.

Holding onto my dream of signing a book contract for God’s Will with tight fists, more than one person began to ask me if I had ever considered self-publishing. For too long, I held onto the old stigma surrounding it—and wrestled with feeling like I was letting down my dream and that I was a failure if I should pursue this avenue of getting my book out in the Great Wide World. I didn’t realize though, that in the midst of, ahem, a lot of refining work God was doing at that time that He was also reshaping my dream to fit within HIS will. The struggle being—it wasn’t my will. Self-publishing was not what I wanted for this novel—I felt I wasn’t giving my novel its due. And as it turns out, if I had done nothing with it or, even worse, kept chiseling away at trying to get a just-shy-of-trade-length novel with six main characters traditionally published? Well. I wouldn’t be celebrating this novel’s second birthday this month.

I don’t understand, nor often particularly like, God’s plan. And despite me writing a novel titled God’s Will, the irony of that is so not lost on me: it took nine years from the start of writing it to re-releasing a second edition to knock some sense into my head. God’s will is best. His plan is perfect. He knows better than me. Shocker, right? Everything that hits us in life comes either from or is allowed by God’s hand. Including the numerous trials and tests of faith that’ve hit between May 2014 and now since first publishing my book. I had to recently take a hard look at my heart and evaluate where I was in accordance with that Psalm 37. That chapter I never finished reading. In addition to exhorting the reader to delight in the Lord and HE will give us the desires of our hearts, there is so much more we have to do. Especially in the writing and publishing journey.

We must trust in Him alone to bring it all to pass. Take steps of faith when He calls us to—and rest and wait on Him to move. It was hard for me to do this—to uncurl my fists around my book baby and let God have it. Multiple times over. But once I let go and embraced the fact God was reshaping my plans and dreams for this novel, all I can say is His will is the sweetest place to be.

Oftentimes getting to this “sweet spot” doesn’t so much take a lot of physical actions on our part but a great deal of surrender. What are some ways you work on this tricky but crucial part of the process? Letting go and letting God?

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About the author: Meghan M. Gorecki is an author of inspirational fiction, a blogger, book reviewer and voracious reader. Taking her life a day at a time as God leads, she is pursuing a career in the publishing industry as an editor in training and as a member of American Christian Fiction Writers. A hopeless romantic, history and Marvel nut, she's also a redhead (thanks to a box), who knows way too much trivia about movie musicals and the Civil War. Find her on social media and at her blog, A Northern Belle (www.northernbellemeg.com). 

Meghan is giving away a paperback copy of her debut novel, God’s Will, on Goodreads through the 28th so be sure to head over there for a chance to win.

You can find her on: Website || Facebook || Twitter || Instagram || Pinterest