“…the Lord your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.”

 Deuteronomy 1:33

He did this very thing.

My husband had been telling me to write a book for the past three years.

I just laughed at him.

“About what?!?”

“What do I possibly know enough about to actually write a whole book about?”

Well, as my plans to return to Newark, faded into the upcoming move to Atlanta last spring, Danny kept saying,

“I really think this might be the season for you to write a book.”

Still, I had no idea how that would play out.

Then late May of 2013, my friend who was living in Swaziland, contacted me:

“I know this sounds crazy, but as I continue to pray for you, I can’t help the feeling that we are suppose to embark on some sort of writing project together.”

Ok, Lord, I get it,

And the cloud started moving.

So after we moved and got settled in Norcross, GA we started scheduling time to sit and listen to the Lord and ask Him what sort of writing project we were to embark on and what it was suppose to be about.

Mind you, we were in different countries, different continents, different time zones, different hemispheres. And the same cloud that moved in my heart, moved in hers, and we started piecing together what this book might be about, what it might be called, how it might be formatted.

And little by little, piece by piece, a book began to be formed. Lots of listening, and journaling, and scribbling on little notecards was engaged in. We recruited prayer warriors.  We spent time on our faces.  We spent time listening to Jesus on the cracking phone line because making phone calls from Swaziland isn’t the easiest experience.

I popped in another Veggie Tales movie, when I should have been homeschooling my 4 year old and monitoring my 3 and 1 year old, and I typed.

And I stayed up until 3 and 4 am at least once a week typing away, studying away. The Cloud was saying “move!” push forward, write every spare minute, move forward. And I did.

And it came together, our book called,

Radical Tabernacle

God came to dwell among us. That He might dwell in us. That we might dwell among them.

A discourse on the elements of the Old Testament Tabernacle, the ways they were fulfilled in Christ, and how they continue to be fulfilled in and through us, as Christ lives in and through us.

In January,  we had gotten 90% of the book done, when a literary agent asked for a book proposal. We scrambled to even figure out how to write one, then put it together to present.  That’s when we got our first rejection letter, due to too small of a platform.

And now, due to a very challenging pregnancy, it has taken the past three months to finish this last 10% of the rough draft.  The Cloud has said , “camp” simply through a body and foggy brain that can hardly get three meals a day ready for five children, much less stay up late to write a book. I am so thankful that the Cloud said move hard, move fast last fall, and that I followed, for at this point, and this pace, this book would NEVER have been written.  But God, in a certain window of intense availability and energy, He prompted us into this adventure.  May I never miss another prompting, simply for the the miracle I have seen Him bringing about in this process.

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But here we are now, ready to enter into the heavy editing phase, and the Lord has kept bringing us to Scripture about the consecration of the Tabernacle and the rededication of the Temple (the permanent Tabernacle).

Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy. Then anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them. Exodus 40:9-11

and then in 2 Chronicles 29:15-17, after a long rebellion of the Lord, the people reconsecrate, clean out, and anoint the elements of worship in the (now permanent) tabernacle

When they had assembled their fellow Levites and consecrated themselves, they went in to purify the temple of the Lord, as the king had ordered, following the word of the Lord.  The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.  They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of theLord. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the Lord itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.  2 Chronicles 29:15-17

And now we clean up, we reconsecrate our manuscript, we listen long, and sort through and we ask the Lord, “What stays?” “What goes?” and “What is still needed?” We pray over and ask for the anointing of the Spirit of God over each element of this manuscript. And we would ask for prayer as we enter into this task.

Nicole, my co-author, has blogged about prayer requests as we enter into this phase, if anyone is interested in helping pray us through this process. And for all of you who have been praying, and cheering us on,

Thank you.

And may each of you continue to follow the Cloud of the Presence of God as He leads you and prompts you, the thrilling adventure that awaits is never a dull one….and never an easy one.