The Author of My Life

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone and also has two devotional books in print. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan. The sequel to One Smooth Stone will be released in 2011Visit her website at www.vinemarc.com

It was in a small cabin outside Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, while surviving - 60 degree temperatures, that I sat by my wood stove and began to write my first novel. As I worked on it I realized writing was of supreme importance to me.

I had run to the Yukon to escape the loneliness and pain in my life. The only familiar thing I took with me was the writing. It had always been my way of escape when I needed one, my way of dealing with the world. When I was lonely, I wrote. When someone hurt me, I wrote. When I believed my life had no purpose, I wrote. I never showed any of my writing to anyone else because I didn’t believe anything I wrote could be of value. I believed I had no value. Though I would not have acknowledged it, the writing was only a band-aid, not a solution to that inner pain.

Then, one day on a lookout point high above the Stewart River I challenged God to prove that He existed. He answered that prayer and gave me the desire of my heart, a beautiful baby girl. Over the next weeks and months the change in my life and even in the physical ‘me’ was so obvious people began to comment on it.

As I grew as a Christian I realized that God is the author of my life – the One who knows my story from beginning to end, because He wrote it himself. The prophet Jeremiah said God told him that “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” God knew me in that same way. He knew me when I walked away from Him and when I cried out to him. That day on the road to Mayo when I turned my face to Him and asked Him to forgive me, He responded even though I didn’t know Him. There’s a wonderful verse in the Bible that says while we were yet sinners, he died for us. I believe that at that very moment on that Yukon road, Jesus embraced me as a parent would embrace a lost child.

And suddenly the story made sense, the writing had purpose. Though I can’t see the end, I know He can, and that’s enough. Jesus is enough. Another of my favourite scriptures, Hebrews 12:2, says – “I desire to fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of my faith ...”

In his gracious mercy He has guided my life and my writing and used it to bless others. As my husband once said, it now comes from a place of strength, not weakness, because it flows from a heart that has been changed, a soul that is the home of His Holy Spirit.