This Advent series reflects on the book of Ezekiel through story, friendship, and lived faith—listening for the breath of God bringing peace, joy, and life into ordinary and sacred moments.

Five is my favorite number. I don’t know why. I can’t help it that I look regularly at the clock at 5:55, mostly p.m. but a.m. too, or that I was born in ‘55. I did learn to ride a bike at five. And right now, today, I’m putting the finishing touches on the fifty-fifth revision of several different versions of Not According to Plan—the novel. That was the name of my blog when I started collecting stories in one place after Dad’s place Sundays with Dad wasn’t big enough for both of us.

“What’s that doing there?” he asked one day.  It wasn’t a story about architecture. But later, he said, “Your stories should stay. The audience will be broader.”

For a man who never marketed his work, because, he said, he was too busy working on the next project, that was good marketing. 

There’s something about reaching the end of a big project like this that stirs up all kinds of things. It’s my first novel, there’s that. It’s been twelve years since I attempted that first page. There’s that. And it’s daunting. I read the first chapter the day before Thanksgiving and thought, “This is stupid. What a dumb idea. What was I thinking?”

And then I thought, I bet I’m not the only person who has ever felt this way at the end of a creative project…so why not write about it? 

I’m sure Dad felt this when everyone told him it couldn’t be done, including the world expert on hyperbolic paraboloids, who said, “If it stands, it will be a miracle!”

That didn’t stop him because Dad always gave credit to the God who gave him his designs, as I do with my stories and with this book. And it’s possible that when it’s done someone moving through a hard time might need the hope of healing my protagonist finds. She sees and hears differently with a change of focus from what’s around her to what’s in her…from what she is to who she is…and whose. 

Ezekiel’s name kept coming to mind before Thanksgiving. I finally opened my Bible.

“What about Ezekiel?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. I did too. 

I’d been feeling the weight of potentially having waisted my time—daring to write my first at this juncture in my life. “You need to relax!” How many times have I heard that?

I do believe our steps are guided…that it’s wrong to hold one’s work up in comparison to what other’s have done or left undone. Isn’t it ours to tackle the task God sets before us, to learn to go forward in His strength and in the Spirit of Adventure…?

I’m trying hard not to question capability. Won’t strength be provided at the proper time?

When faith becomes about a relationship rather than a religion, remarkable things can happen—the impossible.

If I’ve learned anything it’s that we can’t wait to feel strong enough, that’s cowardly. I wonder how much I’ve left undone because of lack of faith…? 

Ezekiel is the prophet of impossible restoration. I don’t think I randomly thought of him. His life is one long living metaphor of God saying: 

You think it’s over.

You think the bones are too dry.

But watch what I can do.

Ezekiel is the man God lifted into a valley of bones so dry they rattled. Bones who felt like they had lost their hope—like me around Thanksgiving, when I should have been thankful.

And God said: Prophecy to them (design—write) call breath back where breath seems impossible.

It’s not about the bones feeling worthy.

It’s not about Ezekiel feeling strong enough.

It’s about the breath.

And then it came to me. What if my book is about the breath, too?  Not because it’s perfect. Not because I feel ready, and certainly not because I’m trying to prove anything. I’m too tired for that. 

It’s only because God keeps breathing into me, and I exhale on the page, even when I worry, doubt, wonder, if it’s all just about my stupid self, the stubborn one, I keep trying to crucify.

Ezekiel didn’t get to pick what God told him to say.

He didn’t get to choose if the people would listen—and like Dad would always say—he wasn’t responsible for the results. 

He was responsible for opening his mouth—for sitting at his drafting board with his Number 4 pencils and rolls of paper…for sitting at my desk with my pen and computer…for sitting still until my bones ache.

Capability is important but it isn’t the point. Calling is. When God gives you a prophecy, a design, or a story, His strength is provided for the task. 

Of course there will be this tendency towards hesitancy, keep going anyway. 

Of course we’re going to feel weak and wonder why. That’s the moment right before breath returns to the bones. 

When confidence and courage feel thin or my heart too raw to be exposed, it’s not a sign of failure. It’s the valley. Like right now, sitting here, wondering about my capability, it’s right here, right now, Todd says, “It’s time to take Fannie for a walk.”

Which is good. Because I’ve reached the valley.

The valley where God calls builders to build, writers to write, even when our hands tremble and ache, even when it feels like we’re going in circles, even when chapters we labor over feel flat.

That’s not the end of the story. This is the point where breath comes again. 

“There is nothing wrong with you,” the father in the novel says to his daughter, Wren.

You are standing where Ezekiel stood and God is whispering, “Write anyway.”

Can you tell I’m taking a devotional walk—kind of like an Ezekiel-for-the-writer on calling, creative obedience, identity vs. self-focus, God’s sovereignty, restoration, breath, returning to dry places? I’m taking it slow.

Ezekiel Devotional Part One: The Hand of the Lord was Upon Me. God tells Ezekiel something wild. He says, 

You don’t control:

Their understanding.

Their reception.

Their rejection.

Their approval.

Your job is to speak (design, write) faithfully, not successfully.

See, this is freedom for those of us who fear being misunderstood, or sounding too self-focused, or not being literary enough, or being too raw, too spiritual, or not spiritual enough. We write into a called place—not an approval-based place.

So…

This is what it feels like to be a woman writing while fighting every voice that says she’s not enough.

This is what this moment, writing this novel, this piece even, feels like: the circling, the doubt, thin words, thin courage. 

This is about the God who meets us right here.

So… keep going, write anyway.

Advent isn’t about feeling ready or strong; it’s about trusting the One who whispers life over what looks impossible. This is the hope that keeps writers writing, builders building, dreamers dreaming—the hope that says, The story isn’t over. Wait for the breath.

Ezekiel 37: 1-14

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