2+ years ago, things started changing in my life.

The empty nest arrived.
God told me to resign my church and my preaching ministry outside of the ministry where I serve rapidly vanished.
My mother died.
My wife began the journey into the Roman Catholic Church, a meaningful journey for her, but a crushing blow to me on a number of levels.
I began a home worship group, hoping it would become a spiritual home. It couldn’t.
I resigned as assistant to the President of our ministry. In the process, termination of my ministry was discussed as an option.
Denise and I prayed about leaving. I activated a resume. But we couldn’t agree on the next step, and nothing happened.
The foundations of my understanding of myself as a preacher crumbled.

I kept writing.

Then two weeks ago, the phone rang and a young man in Boston asked to edit three of my pieces into an opinion piece on the op/ed of the Christian Science Monitor.
A week ago yesterday, he published it in print and on line.
Within 4 hours, it was on Drudge.
In the week since, the column has been everywhere in the media, and I have 12 interviews done or in process, with everyone from CNN to the Moody Network to a local Christian station.
Over 800 people posted comments or sent emails.

Two of them were literary agents.

One called today.

If this day ever came, I had two things I wanted. 1) I wanted to write about Jesus Shaped Spirituality and 2) I wanted someone to see my writing as marketable somewhere outside of the usual Christian market.

The first things I heard today were these two things. Both of them. Exactly.

Perhaps the last two years were moving me somewhere; somewhere I couldn’t go otherwise. Maybe this was God’s long road to take me where he wanted me to go.

Now I have an opportunity. An opportunity I’ve dreamed of. An opportunity that has come to me completely from the grace of God.

What will happen next?

I just have to keep writing.