The Great Wait

You may have heard much of this story before, but now that it has come to completion, I can see that this was how it was supposed to turn out. I found a lot of humor in it at the end.

“Where the Sky Meets the Sand”, my first novel, my fondest baby, was released as an ebook on July 12. The print version was released on September 1. People who ordered it on-line began receiving their copies in the mail soon after that.

When I signed the contract with my publisher nearly a year ago, I ordered 300 copies to sell myself. Silly me thought that I would receive mine early, or at least as others were getting theirs. In retrospect, it makes sense that mine would take a while to print and be delivered because it was such a large order.

Back in the day, printers had to run off that many copies or more at one time to make it worth their while. Now, with on-demand printing, they roll out only the copies they need at any one time. Printing my copies would be a slow process, and in the meantime, I imagine they were sending out one copy here or two copies there.

My catch phrase is “Words Written in God’s Time”, but perhaps it is a reminder that everything else happens in God’s time as well.

On September 20, I finally got an email from my publisher that the books were ready to be shipped and asking what number the shipper could reach me at if they needed to contact me. I thought that was an odd request – just drop the books off on my doorstep, right?

But who cares? The books were on their way, right?

A few more days went by and I had to continually tell myself to turn it over to God. Everything was going to be all right.

I got a message from R&L Carriers on September 28 that the books were ready to be delivered and would someone be available the next day to sign for them.

“Just let me know what time, and I will be there.” Because I wasn’t working that day. If they would have tried delivering them the week before, when Hubby and I were out of town, those books would have been sitting in a warehouse all week.

At 12:59 Friday afternoon the phone rang. “This is R&L Carriers. I’m at the end of your driveway with your delivery, but I can’t make it up your driveway with my semi-truck.”

Semi-truck? I asked myself. I just hadn’t pictured my 300 books needing to arrive by semi-truck.

I jumped in Hubby’s Santa Fe and drove to the end of our one-tenth of a mile long driveway.

Sure enough, there was the semi-truck and trailer. Taking up half of our country road. Better yet was when the driver opened the back of the trailer and there was my little pallet of seven boxes of books, along with two other items in the cavernous space. Wish I would have thought to take my camera with me. The driver would have thought I was nuts for sure. As it was, when he asked what was in the boxes and I told him “books I had written”, he appeared impressed, but was probably really thinking, “that explains it, she’s an eccentric writer.”

He and I loaded the boxes in to the back of the Santa Fe, I bid him a fond farewell (ok, I said, “thanks so much and have a great weekend”).

With minimal help from the Hubby (as his back was out), we hauled the books into the house and into the spare bedroom. I cracked open the first box.

“Do you feel better now?” Hubby asked.

“Yea, I guess I do. It all worked out the way it was meant to.”

And right now, there are only four books left in that first box. Yep, things worked out the way God meant them to.  

At a Maasai village when I was in Kenya two years ago. One of the visions I had for the book's cover.

The Maasai boys who were the inspiration for the boy in the book, from my first trip to Kenya in 2006. 

The Maasai village of Saikeri, where my daughter stayed in 2010 and which I visited twice since, which was the village in the book.

In my impatience, I ordered a copy for myself from Amazon. 

The back cover of that first book.

Those seven boxes in the back of the Santa Fe. 

Those seven boxes in my spare bedroom. 

Cracking the first box, the one that wasn't quite full. 

The first book is birthed.