The Umbrella of Homemaking, Part 3: A Personal Tale
Have you ever noticed how layered and interwoven God’s story of your life is? How God multi-tasks with every event? Not only in your life but in the lives of others? As a storyteller, I’m mesmerized by the complexity of God’s storytelling and how He uses one thing dimensionally.
Here I raise my Ebenezer.
2020 was a difficult year, and not because of the mass hysterics surrounding COVID. I turned 40 and released my hold on two deeply rooted dreams: children and publishing. Again and again over the last 20 years, those two doors cracked open. Again and again as I reached for them, they slammed shut. Honestly, I was weary of the emotional rollercoaster. Just sick of the ups and downs. I was exhausted by the fight I had no moral obligation to continue, and problems and issues flared up every time I tried to push those two doors open.
Side Note: The world tells us we can always grasp our dreams if we try hard enough, but ladies, that’s a lie. Some dreams are better off set aside. Fighting for them constantly is not only fatiguing, but can be destructive.
So in 2020 at the age of 40 I let those two dreams go. (Don’t think this was easy, simple, cut and dry, or done without a great shedding of tears. It was harder than I’m going to ever share here.)
This is the first thing.
The second thing is a struggle I’ve been battling for a time. Our evangelical culture wrongly and detrimentally focuses on our individual walk with the Lord to the utter neglect of our corporate life. But a careful survey of the Scriptures finds the focus almost entirely on our life as a body, as the church, with our fellow members, together hearing the preaching, not alone with our Bibles. For many years, our faithful pastors at HBC have retrained our thinking and I’m so very thankful for their labors.
The ditch I slipped into was a loss of the sense of my personal relationship with God. I was so focused on my connection to the massive tree of the church that I forgot I was an individual leaf on that tree. I lost the truth that God specifically chose me, Abby D. Jones, before the foundation of the world, that Christ Jesus specifically died for me, that the Holy Spirit specifically indwells me, and that I’m specifically loved. All the things which make me me are loved. I soaked long and deeply in the truth of my corporate identity but made my individuality shallow. I lost the connection of the two and it was like trying to cross through a gray land, like being trapped in the Misty Marshes for months instead of days.
That is the second thing.
The third thing is my focus on homemaking. As seen in my Personal Growth — HearthKeeper article, I’ve made some progress and won some hard-fought battles to control my home. I’ve spoken up loudly for our labors and made strong claims about the openness of our work, the importance of our work, and how all things can snuggle under the homemaking umbrella for us women.
That is the third thing.
Back on October 21, 2021, I sat in a local coffee shop while my husband hosted an Elders Meeting in our home. That was when Vulgaris Media entered my life via a Tumblr message from Alana, the owner of the company.
Alana approached me because she felt like we might share similar philosophies about stories based on my posts, homemaking articles, and my article on The Last Unicorn. She wanted to know if I might submit some work to her publishing company.
Thanks, but no thanks.
It was a compliment, absolutely, and made my whole week, but I was content with that and told her I wasn’t looking to be published.
Alana didn’t give up. She offered to have me do commission work or a collaboration. I threw everything I could in her path: health issues, home priorities, homemaker focus, and my husband’s work.
Alana took everything in stride.
With a deep breath and Deanna’s encouragement, I took Alana’s proposal to Price. He said, “Ask all the questions and tell me all about it.” I had permission to inquire. Deep breath again, this is probably nothing, just a nice compliment to the years I’ve poured into my craft.
Alana and I started emailing. I wanted to show her my fictional writing. (Seriously, one of my first questions to her was how she felt about violence and language because my fictional writing is like the alter-ego of my homemaker writing, the Sarah Conner to my Jane Bennett.) I didn’t want to explore too much without being upfront about what I write.
I emailed her on November 7th. On November 8th, I woke up to an email asking if my short story, The Fighting Sullivans, had been previously published, and if not, could Vulgaris Media publish it in their literary journal? Oh, and the deadline is November 20th, with a hard deadline of December 10th. Oh, and if yes, there would need to be revisions but Alana would pair me with a co-writer who would handle that, with me needing to approve and do final edits. Vulgaris Media does writing apprenticeships and has a collaboration-based business model, so she would match me with a compatible co-author. Since I’m both not pouring my life into this, and I am such a pantser, this was perfect. It allowed me to grow and learn.
Heart racing, nauseous with excitement, I went back to Price.
“Okay, let’s do it!” he said. He said yes!
Nothing could have proven how diligent I’d been to manage my home than that yes. Before, my writing always got in the way. Now, I had proven effectively that my home came first and he knew it. He said yes!
My co-author started on revisions and soon had a first chapter to show me. I started editing so we could get a sense of our voices working together. Everything was going smoothly except for the fact that the story was getting bigger and bigger. I had a nagging suspicion it might be too big for the literary journal.
On November 26, Vulgaris Media emailed me with a new proposal. We had, in three weeks, developed a 30,000-word story with another 20,000 words to go. We no longer had a short story but a novel. Alana proposed we publish the story as a stand-alone book but with the same deadline. Queue the anxiety attack: my co-author had to finish revisions and leave me time to edit all of it at the intersection of holiday craziness, Christmas parties, a deadline for the magazine, and my inability to put everything on hold.
In a move that gained so much of my trust, Alana said stop. Take four days with your husband and home over the weekend and then see how you feel. I did just that. On Tuesday morning, I presented the new plan to Price.
Again, he said yes!
And now I had, in the middle of a very busy time of the year, less than two weeks to edit a novel. The first week went well, but as we came down the home stretch my co-author and I edited at the same time, sometimes the same scene or even the same sentence. That was a bit trippy. Alana had to change the deadline for my edits to due-that-evening because she’d gotten so many preorders she had to be able to do the final final edit and get them to print faster to meet the promised deadline.
One last push and I finished at 5:30 just in time to go make dinner.
It’s been a crazy ride. I’ve been elated and terrified and nauseous and crying. Publishing is a whole different thing than writing. It’s a business. It’s also exposure.
“Hi. This is a bit of my soul.”
“Yeah, well your soul is stupid and I hated it.” One star.
Side Note: It was a great blessing this all happened so fast. It was like pulling off a Band-Aid. Get it done quick, before you have time to process it.
The business elements allowed me to distance myself. Co-authoring also helped. This story is me, but it is also us and that makes it feel less violating. It’s like wearing clothes. The clothes express who I am, but they also cover and hide who I am. The business side and co-authoring become a safe barrier to help me as the author feel less soul-naked.
So Monday, December 6th pre-orders opened and I’m a published author. Not self-published, but published-by-a-company published. (I want to keep writing that: I’m published!!!!!)
What about my 3 things?
That was the first thing, a dream released became a dream fulfilled.
Side Note: for the love of all that is holy, please don’t come to me and say maybe this means we’ll also have kids. I know God can make that happen in any countless and unbelievable ways, but it isn’t helpful to me to think about it or expect it. I didn’t expect or even hope for this and I don’t expect or hope for that, and this isn’t a sign that is going to happen.
C.S. Lewis has this great quote:
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
There have been several times in my life where I’ve had to give things up that were important to me for Christ’s sake — not because they were wrong, but because they weren’t best. Each time the Lord has blessed me beyond measure. Letting go of this world and trusting Him has always proven His faithfulness, but never how I expected. I expected to go at the hard work of contentment. Who in the world is going to publish someone unknown and not even looking to be published?
Look at what God did! He brought a company to me that’s a perfect fit. A company willing to honor my priorities, understand my health limitations, but also looking to publish gritty fantasy with traditional, conservative leanings. My co-author is great at plotting and bringing things to a satisfying conclusion. We complement each other so well. God worked this out. I could not have brought it about if I tried. And I wasn’t trying, wasn’t looking at all.
This brings us to the second thing. The providence of these last few months was so unique and so personal it felt like I was whacked in the head. “I love you, Abby!” It was so personal that I almost felt scared and sacrilegious, like I was going to run off on some theological heresy. And at the same time, it was like stepping into a lush woodland after being in a desert. It was an Ebenezer, a monument to help me see both the corporate love of Christ and the personal love of Christ. What a marvelous blessing. With encouragement from Price, I have basked in this very tangible gift from my Father. I have soaked in all the thankfulness as God opened every door, smoothed every bump so that this could happen. Not a bit of it was in my control. I’m just astounded. In awe, refreshed and renewed in my love of Christ. This is a huge answer to prayer. I’ve been praying the Lord would help me to see not only the corporate but also the personal. I knew I was in a dry wasteland, mentally and emotionally. God answered that prayer in a way I never expected. All praise and glory to Him for this kind gift. I’m just…I just have no words, only thankful tears.
As Scrooge said, I don’t deserve to be so happy.
And then the third thing.
As October and November moved along into December and I was handed this gift that I’ve longed for since I was 21, I was tested. Do I really believe that homemaking is both my priority and my delight? Do I really believe all of my life can fit under the umbrella of homemaking? Can I keep my home my priority?
God had given me a great gift, answered my prayers, and set a test before me.
Could I be trusted with this thing that I previously idolized? Would it become an idol again? I was tempted to pour more and more and more time into my book. It has your name on it, what if it’s not perfect? Just a few more hours won’t matter. This is way more exciting than meal planning. Being published! Way more significant than grocery shopping. You can tell everyone you’re a writer now instead of a homemaker. Home is over there, writing is over here, not together. All the bubbling and boiling lies and temptations brewed inside me as expected. Seeing the temptation helped me be armed and ready because it was a temptation.
By God’s grace, and with the help of my husband, the publisher, and my co-author, I was able to stay in the fight. Not perfectly, but at least seeing the temptation and staying the course. Those last two days, I had to give the book 80% of my focus, but even that is proof of my growth as a homemaker. Because I have invested so much self-training into my home, I was able, with ease, to juggle my week, meal planning, and chores so that my home worked for me. I knew what I could juggle and what I couldn’t. When Thursday morning dawned, I breathed deeply of home, knowing my labors on the book were finished and my home was ready, waiting, and in control. What a rewarding feeling. What a rewarding experience!
Many times, temporary upsets and phases and opportunities arise for us homemakers. When our minds, hearts, and homes are in control, we can make short-term, temporary changes without anxiety or the loss of our umbrellas.
This has been a wild ride, but it has been such a blessing. To watch the Lord work, to receive such a tangible gift, to face a test and see how much I’ve grown, are all such big gifts. I’m quite beside myself.
Is my book perfect, all I could ever dream of as a writer? No. But it is the perfect place to start, to remove that Band-Aid and start learning about my craft in a wider world, a world of editors, co-authors, publishers. That’s way different than sitting in my cozy living room typing up death and mayhem for my friends to read.
I’m very thankful and excited and terrified and calm and everything all at once.
If you would like to check out my book, a book of warriors and keepers of homes, a book of family and forgiveness, go here. Print orders available soon. If you’re a homeschooler and love to write, check out Vulgaris Media’s submissions and Academy!
