My November Voyage & Deep Gratitude to my Father

[Image by mbgrigby]

I hear them calling out to me at odd hours of the day, those feisty, notorious characters of my novel's work-in-progress. They burn with an alluring desire for their voices be heard, to tell their story. They want the world to know who they truly are. Not just the fictional figments of the world's imaginations, but true stories that have happened before throughout our existence, and will continue to happen till the end of time.

Hurts, pain, survival, salvation, redemption- these characters want you to see where they've been, and where they are determined to go.

So, in order to listen to them more carefully, to truly let them teach me who they really are, I will join the rest of the NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) participants, as we embark upon a very sacred pilgrimage to find the voices of our characters. I believe it is a voyage that has beckoned to me for a while now, and I will not turn my back on it. So dear readers, I'll be 'gone till the end of November' (like that famous song sweetly says). Feel free to devour the previous posts on the Lamp Blog, and meditate on them till I get back with something new in December.

Deep Gratitude to My Father:

In the month of November, we celebrate "Thanksgiving" in the United States, and in this month, I have a deep sense of gratitude towards God. You know, it's not like everything He promised has fully manifested in my life or my family's yet, but I can see that He is working behind the scenes, doing things that only Him could have ever thought of. I'm thankful for so many things, beyond this rather short list I'll give right now:

* For Purpose: I don't want to imagine how it feels to live a life without any direction from God. According to His word, He has promised to "order the steps of the righteous." And though sometimes I do not understand the things I do, it has happened many times than I can count that at the end of every project I come to the realization that God's hand was in it all along.

* For hubby: He does the most romantic things sometimes. For instance, I might be whining about needing something, and then he goes in secret and buys it for me. Oh, also for his selection of movies for our downtime. Whenever I'm the one choosing the movie, it's usually a bad movie night...so thank God he's been assigned the task of always choosing the movie to watch.

* For Laughter: I called my dad some days ago, and the way he laughed made me giggle. There's nothing like pure joy emanating in the form of laughter, and I'm thankful to God that although things are still taking shape, He has given us the peace that passes all human understanding. Some of my family and family friends lost some loved ones to death, but my prayer is that God will continue to cause us to laugh...because we will be rest assured with a unique kind of peace that can only come from one source.

* For Connections: Sometimes people don't understand when I tell them, but some of the best friendships have arisen from my social networks (Blogger, WordPress, and Twitter). I strongly believe that for some of you, our paths have not merely crossed casually, and that there is a purpose as to why we've connected so strongly. So let's keep connecting, shall we?

Happy thanksgiving, lovely readers. See you all in December. Love you lots! PS: Let me know if you're participating in #NaNoWriMo too, so we can do this together :)