God speaks, part 2: Read this book!

Quite a while ago, in a magazine sent to me as a free preview, I saw a book reviewed titled, "Eat. Pray. Love." by Elizabeth Gilbert. A woman right around 30 became so deeply disillusioned with her life that she gave up her successful job, perfect house, "perfect" marriage, false hopes for a family, and spent a year following her desires - four months each in Italy, India, and Indonesia. Being the owner of about 400 books, being broke, and having read a few lukewarm reviews in other publications, I hadn't bought it, although it certainly sounded like a memoir I could relate to.

I never read about it or saw it again...until about a month ago. I have seen it everytime I've walked through a bookstore. Walmart. Or even small, independent coffee shops. It always seems to jump out at me. A little part of me always wonders, "Are You trying to tell me something?" But then I dismiss myself. There are numerous simpler and more obvious explanations.

It was the first book I saw walking into MSP airport as I was departing for San Diego. I said to myself, "Hmmm...I want to save my money, my vacation is just started!"

It was the first book I saw while exiting San Diego airport. Same argument.

I saw it twice in random locations during my three days with Shelly. (Curiouser and curiouser...)

Last year, before dropping me off at the airport, Shelly and I wandered around the shops on the Embarcadero. We shared iced mochas and a fabulous brownie at a great little independent coffee shop/bookstore, while breathing in the ocean and saying goodbye for the year. When we returned this year, right smack in the center of the first shelf I see is...The Book. Out loud I say with a laugh, "Fine! I'll get it!" To Shelly's raised eyebrow, I gave the short version of the story, justifying it with, "Well, I need something to read on the flight home anyway." (Pretty sure my sister thinks I'm crazy sometimes.)

No surprise that I fought my tears while my plane took off and banked over the ocean, as I experienced all the same thoughts and feelings that I had last year when I wrote "Flying Away From the Sun." If I thought that my new book might distract me from my tears, I was so wrong. I think this book was written just for me. Nights spent crying out on the bathroom floor, finding God there, finding courage there, the pain of releasing all the familiar circumstances of the life you were sure you wanted (the life you thought you ought to have), trusting yourself, trusting God, and doing something that everyone else in your life thinks is irrational and impractical. All because you're desperate to live your life, find your purpose, find God. In a parallel to my own experience, she talks about seeing a poetry book on a shelf in Rome and feeling led to purchase it:

(pg. 39)
"I found a seat under an orange tree and opened one of the poetry books I'd purchased yesterday. Louise Glück. I read the first poem in Italian, then in English, and stopped short at this line:
Dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontana...
'From the center of my life, there came a great fountain...'
I set the book down in my lap, shaking with relief."

As did I.