This week’s Thankful Thursday is about loss and the attitude that turns mourning into joy.
Gratitude is really about an attitude that sees the world in ways that have nothing to do with circumstances or emotions.
In March, I launched Life As We Knew It. As I was conducting the launch party on Facebook, I thought I’d get some things done toward my next book Mirklin Wood, which is Book 2 of the Daermad Cycle. The Daermad Cycle was once a massive epic fantasy that I broke into smaller constituent pieces so that I could bring out some of the other stories connected to Padraig and Tamys. So, the book is about half-written and I was about 30,000 words into the additional material. I planned to perform a backup of what I had so far.
In the middle of the transfer, the lights flickered and my laptop shut down. When I pulled everything back up again, the memory stick was fried and my working copy on the laptop was corrupted. I had to go back to the original manuscript (saved on a disk) to start all over again.
I had also lost my map of Daermad and all my cover images.
I wanted to cry, beat my fists against a concrete wall and go yell at a Golden Valley Electric Assocation official.
I didn’t though, because none of those things would have done any good. I still would have been 30,000 words in the hole.
So, I ….
Thanked God for the opportunity to rewrite the book and got started writing all over again.
Gratitude didn’t happen the second I realized all my work was gone. It started when I thanked God that my laptop wasn’t damaged by the surge. It continued when I inserted the disk and found that my original manuscript was just fine. And, then I remembered to be thankful in everything because God can work all things to good in the lives of those who trust Him.
Mirklin Wood isn’t finished yet (it’s in rewrite), but It’s a better book. It’s now 40,00 words beyond that lost manuscript and includes story lines I never would have considered if I’d not lost those words. Characters emerged that never had a place in the lost book. I found some greater depths of human pathos while I was working to recreate what I had lost.
I’m honestly happy that God intervened to send me in a somewhat different direction from where
I was headed before. Yeah, it was more work, but it was better work.
But I wouldn’t have gotten there without the attitude adjustment. If I’d wept and wailed and gone at the book with anger in my heart, I suspect I’d still be right about where I was that evening in March.
Gratitude has nothing to do with emotions or the circumstances we’re sitting in right now. It’s all about an attitude that recognizes that God knows what He is doing in our lives and that anything, no matter how upsetting or heavy, can work out into a good thing if we just trust Him.
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