I did it! I hit the “send” button!

Reading time: 2 minutes, 26 seconds

Yesterday was the day I'd dreamed of for years. I hit the “send” button and shipped my manuscript off to the publishing company. I'm talking about my new memoir, Please, God, Don't Make Me Go! A Foot-Dragger's Memoir.

Here's the book description from the back cover:

What’s a comfortable—and cowardly—suburbanite to do when her husband wants to move their young family to Colombia, South America, so he can teach missionaries’ kids?

Linda K. Thomas has always planned to chase the American dream. Adventure doesn’t appeal to her, and she’s ill-equipped for missions work. She begs God, “Please, don’t make me go!” but after months of soul-searching, she hears Him say, “Go!”

So, with flimsy faith and wobbly courage, she sets out with her husband and kids on a life-changing adventure at the end of the road in the middle of nowhere with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

When culture shock, tropical heat, and a boa constrictor threaten to undo Linda, she’s tempted to run away and hike back to the U.S. Instead, she fights to settle in and soon falls in love with her work alongside modern-day heroes of the faith disguised as regular folks. God has sent her where she didn’t know she wanted to go.

Once life is under control and easy, she gets a surprise—a request to go to one of the world’s most dangerous drug-dealing regions where hundreds of people have lost their lives. Colombia is perilous in other ways, too. Marxist guerrillas don’t like Americans or missionaries, proving it with bombs, kidnapping, and eventually murder.

Linda won’t trust God to help her make the trip, and she can’t trust herself, either. Gripped by anxiety, she longs to stay in the only safe place, the mission center. She prays, “Please, God, don’t make me go!” But once again He urges, “Go!” Thus begins a fierce internal battle.

In this heartwarming, sometimes humorous, sometimes shocking memoir, you’ll walk alongside a young wife and mother as she faces two universal struggles: 

• choosing between her plans and God’s, and
• choosing faith and courage over fear and cowardice.

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go! will motivate the timid to cancel membership in the Society of the Faint-Hearted, and it will inspire every reader to enjoy God more and embrace new adventures He dreams up.

I was ready to send the manuscript a year ago but ran into one technical problem after another after another. The past year has been a nightmare as far as technology goes. But I sure did learn a lot! Too bad using one's brain doesn't burn calories. . . .

When you're ready to publish, contact me and I'll share tips to help you avoid the snags I encountered. Publishing my first memoir, Grandma's Letters from Africa, was much easier than publishing this second one. I willingly chose the method I used this time. It's just that I bit off more than I could chew.

They say old age isn't for wimps. Let me assure you, writing and publishing a memoir isn't for wimps, either. 

Don't let me scare you out of publishing our own memoir. The bottom line is this: It is possible for you to write your memoir and get it published. Yes, it is. Never doubt that.

You just need to commit to doing it and seeing it through all the way until you're holding your memoir in your hands and thumbing through the pages. You can do this!

I nearly melt in tears when I think of all the people who helped me get the manuscript polished, the interior formatted, photos just right, and the cover designed (well, actually . . . ahem . . . redesigned). And I thank God for His help and for sending good people to walk me through the technical parts.

I admit it: I'm tuckered out.

For now, here's my encouragement to you:

Keep writing.

Keep praying while you write, too.

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Please, God, Don't Make Me Go:
A Foot-Dragger's Memoir