Tonight I was actually going to blog about something completely inappropriate, yet completely hillarious. Instead, I'm blogging about a book. Now, I usually don't blog about too many books. Mostly because the whole book thing is my job, and I feel like if I say, "I loved this book, read it," you guys will think it's just me doing my job. So I almost never recommend books. I will occasionally help a friend out by promoting a book on my blog, but other than that, I don't talk about too many books. And honestly, I don't want to talk about a lot of books, because I don't want folks to skim over my blog thinking, "great, she's telling me to read another book."

 HOWEVER

I MUST blog about this book:
I met Allie as part of my job. She's a great lady. People like Allie are one of the reasons I like my job. Last summer, I ran into her at a big convention and she started talking about this book she was writing where the heroine was a coffee drinker and the hero was a tea drinker and how their worlds collided over coffee. She had me at tea drinker. Even though I was immensely jealous of her tea research and inclined towards sour grapes, I read the book. Tonight. In the bath. (Bunny trail here... I've decided that this bathtime book ritual is something I MUST get back to doing again more regularly. I'm finding my soul again.)

This book is seriously fabulous.

Here's why I love Allie's writing. It seems very lighthearted and funny. And then, hidden in the middle of a paragraph, an incredibly deep spiritual insight jumps out. As in, WOW!

I'm going to give away the spiritual lesson here, so bear with me and don't yell at me for giving away the book. One of the "perfect blends" in the book is how God works. In the midst of all the doubt I've been having about my house miracle, I have continued to prepare. Even though there are days when I look at the circumstance and think, "no way," I continue to prepare. As I read this book, I noticed something really incredible (and okay, because we know God has to wear His "I'm with stupid" t-shirt when He's with me, Allie did overtly point it out). Maggie (the heroine) did not have her dream handed to her on a silver platter. She still had to work her butt off to get it. In the midst of all her doubts, she clung to faith. No matter how bad it looked, she continued to cling. More importantly, she continued to prepare.

I'm going to ruin the ending somewhat here, and once again, I apologize, but read the book anyway. Maggie didn't get her dream on her timing. It didn't happen the way she thought it would. However, it did happen. And when it happened, it was because of all the preparation she'd done in anticipation of the dream. Even though she was frustrated at having to do the preparatory steps, especially given that she was pretty much forced into doing it, had she not taken those steps, she'd have never reached her dream. Maggie didn't think she needed to do all the preparation. God had given her the dream, so He would provide the rest. He didn't. So she did what she had to do. When the opportunity presented itself, she was able to take it BECAUSE she'd done the work beforehand.

How many times have we had a dream set before us, something we clearly thought was from God? It's so easy to think He's just going to hand it to us on a platter. But for most of us, it doesn't happen. A lot of people end up disillusioned with God because they see the failure of their dream to be a failure of God. I have to wonder, though. Did they do the work? Did they do everything humanly possible to make the dream come true? Or did they, as I blogged about the other day, wait and wait and wait and wait for it to rain?

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