Guest Blogger Sarah Sundin
Head Knowledge
“Your own website? Mom, how could you do this to me?”
It’s no coincidence that God gave me a teen daughter and a publishing contract at the same time. My daughter turned thirteen two weeks after I received The E-Mail. Since then I’ve mortified her by giving bookmarks to total strangers, actually answering questions about my writing, and signing books for her friends’ mothers. Don’t you know moms of teen girls must fade into the background-not get written up in the local paper? While she may think I sought publication for the sole purpose of ruining her life-and maybe I did-I see God’s hand behind the timing.
Pride is the most dangerous and insidious of sins. As Christian writers, we know the importance of battling pride and wrestling our souls into humility.
The Lord knows I need help in this department, and I see a pattern in how He works in my life. Whenever something good happens that could puff me up, God pairs it with something to remind me how human and flawed I am. A great review? Mix it with some middle-school son brainlessness:”I’m supposed to turn my homework in?” A new contract? How about a splash of college-boy roommate issues? A contest final? Slap an icepack on to prevent a swelled head.
Literally.
On May 23, I received a call that my second novel, A Memory Between Us, is a finalist in the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Awards. And I laughed. Because on May 24, I was scheduled to have a gorgeous little sebaceous cyst removed from my scalp. It really didn’t hurt, but I spent the next twenty-four hours with an icepack strapped to the back of my head with an Ace bandage. Now, isn’t that a pretty picture? And yet, it was the perfect picture. An icepack on my head the very day that head was in danger of swelling.
Not only does God have exquisite timing, He has a fabulous sense of humor.
Sarah Sundin lives in northern California with her husband and three children. When she isn’t ferrying kids to soccer and tennis, she works on-call as a hospital pharmacist and teaches Sunday school. She is the author of the Wings of Glory series: A Distant Melody (Revell 2010), A Memory Between Us (2010), and Blue Skies Tomorrow (August 2011).
I loved your post, Tricie. My family didn’t even notice much change as I received contract after contract, etc. To all of them, daughters and grandchildren, I was just Mom or Grandma who happened write books. No big thing.
Then about a year and a half ago, my younger daughter was introducing me to a friend at our Fall Festival. She said, “This is my mom. She’a famous author.”
I almost fainted. The first time I’d been recognized by family as someone who might have a little claim to fame.
But I agree. We need them to keep us real and grounded.