Ch 10: A Tedious Assignment

The Great CEO handed me a new mission. No timeline. No project plan. Just begin.

Oct 10, 2024

Finally, Something New

Eighteen years after God and I first started talking, we were still corresponding on a regular basis. Rarely more than once a week, but no less than once a quarter.

God had counseled me through parenting, job loss, moving, starting a business in another state, and accepting ordination to ministry (twice). As time went by, and I tested the words in my now-multiple journals, my trust in God and in those words grew ever stronger.

From the beginning, any time a big life change has been on the horizon, God has been pretty good about giving me hints in advance. My visit to the little Greek church, my visit from Maria, and multiple messages about our impending business sale had thoroughly prepared me to shed the responsibilities of retail management.

At the same time, God has been good about dropping hints as to what new adventure might be right around the corner.

This time was no exception.

[Editor's Note: This article is Chapter 10 in my serialized spiritual memoir Well Guided: My Life as a Student at the International Academy of God, in which I share some of the many ways God has had a hand in my life. Access previous chapters via the Table of Contents.]

My Next Assignment

Really, the first hint of a new direction was the command I heard on January 9, 2008 to bless my eyes. At the time, I didn’t recognize that as a hint. The encouragement to “experiment” was a little too subtle for my left-brained nature to grasp.

The first overt hint came at the end of a normal busy day at the store. That chilly January evening, as I got ready for bed, I felt the now-familiar gentle prompting of the Spirit to sit and listen.

With clean face and teeth, I climbed into bed and grabbed my journal. As I normally do when I don’t have something on my mind, I turned to a new page and wrote, "Master, speak. Thy servant heareth."

The Spirit began by talking about selling the store. While that was a pleasant surprise, it was a message I’d been waiting for, for years. What came next, however, was pretty much out of the blue. It was something I hadn’t thought about for more than a decade.

January 12, 2008: Then once the business is sold, make haste to write your book about your experiences with journaling.
Make haste, I say again, for I will need this testimony sooner than you think. My purposes will be made known to you then.
Only give me the glory and seek none for yourself and the way will be shown to you. You are my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.

I hadn't even gotten an offer on the business, yet I found myself transcribing a message about what God wanted me to do once we had sold.

Step One: Start Transcribing

At that point, I barely had had time to think about what I might do if we ever sold our store. I had been toying with the idea of some type of internet business. Maybe eBay.

Throughout my career, even while running the store, I could never keep my hands off the keyboard for long. Working from home on an Internet business seemed like a good option.

While not eliminating that as a possibility, the message was pointing me in a different direction. Specifically, I was hearing God say in no uncertain terms that it was time to start writing a book about my experiences with journaling…which, let’s just say it, is a very broad topic.

So, let’s be clear: God wasn't giving any guidance around standard book stuff. How to approach my subject, what the theme should be, what it should be called, who it was for, and so on. My initial instructions were simply to enter the entire contents of my five handwritten spiritual journals into the computer.

Sharon Hines' first five completed spiritual journals — The Tedious Assignment: Type up the contents of these journals.

This request came out of nowhere. Sure, I had enjoyed the challenge of writing sermons since my ordination in 1999. Sure, I had even dictated the story of learning the spiritual journaling practice into a mini-tape recorder, thinking I could publish something one day along the lines of God Calling.

But somehow, I didn't think that's where God was going with this project. Call it a hunch.

At first, I didn't take things too seriously. The idea of all that typing was about as appealing as cleaning our convenience store men's room. You get the idea. But things started happening just as God had said. Three months later, we had a sales agreement signed and a closing date of June 12th.

Once again, I felt that gentle tug, letting me know it was time to sit and write.

April 23, 2008: Get back to typing in your earlier journals so that you will be ready to move forward when the time comes. Amen.
Do not concern yourself with format or media or method right now. Just get the journal entered in and whatever else strikes you (in a similar vein) as you are entering what you have already written.
Do not worry about ebooks or paper books or blogs. All that will work itself out if you trust me and proceed one step at a time. Then I will make it obvious how you should proceed by what or who I put in front of you or in your path.
You should know now that this will not be an easy task-—not like this journal or the sermons I sometimes dump into your brain.
No, this one will require you to study it out in your own mind, to be sure you believe what you have written and can back it up in your own mind and rationalize it and understand it logically as well as spiritually.
Again, I say, it will not be easy. It may take many years to complete this task, this first book, depending on your level of focus and effort. But it doesn't have to take that long… it's up to you.
What else do you want to do? This must be done first…
And don't worry about your approach or your theme or your title. All will come in good time. Enter first what has already been written.
After Step One is completed, I will share Step Two. Trust me and step out in faith and all will be added in its own time. Amen.

That's a pretty open-ended assignment. No timeline. No project plan. No indication of what's next. Just begin.

Everything else was on a need-to-know basis. And it’s true. I didn't need to know. Not just yet.

Love Those Distractions

And writing wasn't the only thing to think about. I was going to need a way to generate income once the store was sold. I didn't really relish the idea of getting a j.o.b.

In my journal, in late May, God supported my career leanings by saying:

…do consider an internet business of some kind, just not related at all to your journal.

Clearly, I was going to need to earn money some other way:

What you do for me will not earn you much, ever. That is NOT a purpose of that mission. It is only for my glory that you do the book, not for the support of your family.

We closed on the sale of our business on June 12th, as planned. I had already transcribed a couple of my journals by then, but there was plenty left to cover. Months followed with no progress.

And no wonder. I was frantically focused on trying to make money on eBay. I cleared out our swollen inventory of store leftovers. What did I need with a Budweiser neon sign, a commercial-grade milkshake mixer, and a half-dozen sets of brightly colored café tables and chairs?

Frantic days on eBay began to morph into evenings of TV and computer games. Fun stuff I hadn't had time for, not between the store and raising school-aged children. The book project languished. And God took note:

Get busy and stop wasting my time. There is energy enough for the tasks at hand if you but use time wisely, don't waste it, and spend your leisure productively. Research the internet, read, or do crafts. Stop the computer games and other stuff that serves no purpose (like TV). You can do it if you try, and you will be the better for it.

Come August, God told me to stop worrying about baking and jam-making, and a quilt I had started. All worthwhile projects, but diversions nonetheless. This time God took a more inspirational tack:

Behold the field is white, all ready to harvest, and I need workers who are prepared to enter my field and my vineyard when the call goes out to work. Prepare ye, then, to take the place I have prepared for you in the creation of my kingdom on this earth. Amen.
For behold, I have a great work for you yet to do, but I will lead you step by step, precept on precept, until you are ready to stand in that place I have prepared for you.
Tarry not, neither let your prejudices and self-doubt stay you from this work.

Even at that, I couldn’t quite bring myself to get down to all that typing.

Crossing the Finish Line

Finally, eight months after closing, with the Creator’s patience wearing thin, I again felt that gentle nudge to sit with my journal, pen in hand, ready to receive a message. I got it. In no uncertain terms:

Get back to work on your journal.

This time, I did. Somehow my brain's mysterious full-speed-ahead toggle switched to ON. By early April, with most of the convenience store leftovers sold, and eBay on a slow simmer, I turned my full attention to this new jigsaw-puzzle-of-a-project. Without the lid.

I typed. And typed.

One thick volume after another until finally, I was done. Five journals had become dozens of Word documents.

The insufferable task I’d been postponing—the transcribing slog I thought I'd never get through—was now just a memory. All that pain was behind me, like childbirth. I looked, and saw that it was good.

And, like a mother with a crying newborn, the real work was about to begin.