Yesterday, Gary headed out west on a business trip. Saturday, Karl heads “across the pond” to visit his girlfriend and see some new places. Next week, Erik heads north for twenty days to be available for conferences, meetings and the like related to his job. (When I was in the military, I would’ve termed Erik’s trip a TDY.)

My guys are doing a lot of journeying.

For a bit there, it looked like all three of them would be gone at the same time and I admit to panicking. But Gary will actually return before Karl leaves, so my emotional state is better.

On one level, I’d rather have my guys around me all the time. But on another, especially regarding my adult sons, I also want them to find their paths, have adventures, and live abundantly.

I often feel a lot like Mara in Three Impossible Tasks when she’s sending off Garth. Crying because I will miss the one leaving, but encouraged because he is doing what Tel (God) and life ask of him.

In the remaining two books, releasing this Friday, there’s a lot of journeying. Especially for Garth and Nellie who not only travel around the world they know, but through two different time periods in the past world. Sometimes it’s their decision (they think) to take an action that leads them on another journey. Sometimes, they are captive to travels and must simply experience what comes their way, good or bad. This week’s post relates more to book 5, Outside of Space and Time, and I will focus more on the final book in next week’s blog.

Because of the decay of information under Queen Subja’s rule, Garth doesn’t know a lot of his own history. Since Nellie grew up in the hidden country of Telantia, where a blend of royalty and priesthood reign, she did learn. Often, when they find themselves somewhere new, Nellie has at least a decent idea of where they’ve ended up. Sometimes that helps. Sometimes it doesn’t.

We are no different. Sometimes, as we journey through life, we know enough to have a fair idea of where we’re headed, where the path will end if we continue in the way we’re going. Other times, the journey strikes us as strange and bizarre and we wonder how we got to our new reality.

Whichever journey, logical or bizarre, God uses in the lives of his children. In our walk with God, trying to live by faith, we take paths of life that we think are our decision, but God uses that choice, that path. We also find ourselves catapulted into adventures and realities we’d rather not deal with; journeys we’d rather not have.

In Acts 27, Paul himself experiences a journey with risks that he would rather have not have lived through. Now when much time had been spent, and sailing was now dangerous…, Paul advised them, saying, “Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives.” …  But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.” 

Paul knew he was headed to Rome, but he didn’t know the paths that trip would take. Garth and Nellie knew there were people and dinosaurs they needed to meet, whether or not they knew where they would go to find those new friends (and enemies).

My guys, too, have certain expectations of their journeys—sometimes fun, sometimes arduous, sometimes foreseeable, sometimes unpredictable.

But isn’t that the way of all our journeys, whether of life or faith?

No, the title of this blog does not mean that I’ve suddenly lost my excess weight, though that would be nice. Nor does it have to do with thin clouds or abbreviated time.

When I talk about days and times that are thin, I mean when the boundary between the natural and the supernatural thins. Those times, those days when angels, demons, bizarre coincidences tread upon our reality. The times when dreams and visions cloud our eyes.

On Friday, the next of the Portal Watchers releases. In Three Impossible Tasks, those boundaries flex and the characters ignore the existence of hidden realities to their peril. Garth is the first to suffer harm when he forgets to stay on guard within the borders of the queen’s fortress. When evil attacks him, more specifically his leg, he can feel the pain of it, but he can’t see anything. At least not until his leg is submerged in clean, clear water. (I’m intentionally trying to be as vague as possible so as not to give spoilers.) Then, covered by purity (or at least the symbol of it), the evil is visible and obvious. The water thinned the border between the natural and the supernatural.

Back in September, I wrote a post about the problem of visions. The sensation of impending change and/or doom kept intensifying after that. By January, it was so heightened it drove my blood pressure up and interfered with my ability to sleep. I saw more and more of the “snapshots” and somehow, I knew, that something intense was on the horizon. I told this to Gary with increasing urgency. And then, I said, “I don’t know what it is, but something very bad, evil, is going to happen very soon.”

Within a week, it did. Was it bad for the world? No. For our family and those dear to us? Yes.

With poets, artists, and sensitive souls, often the border between the natural and the supernatural grows quite thin. I’m convinced, even though I have no proof of it, that a high percentage of fantasy writers have had supernatural experiences; they’ve experienced the fantastic which makes it easier to convey such worlds and other realities with their audiences.

For most of humanity, I believe the border between the natural and supernatural is self-imposed. I don’t mean people consciously choose it. It’s like blinking to protect your eyes from dust-filled wind. Their reflexes, trying to live in the day-to-day, drop a veil over their eyes or a film over the mirror so that we don’t live in constant terror of the battles going on around us.

Sometimes, those battles can reassure us if we see how God’s angels are protecting us. I think of the account with Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings. The servant saw the troops that the king of Aram had sent, hoping to take Elisha prisoner.

<The servant asked,> “Oh, my master, what are we to do?”

Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us outnumber those who are with them.”

Then Elisha prayed, “LORD, please open his eyes and let him see.” (6:15b-17a, HCSB)

With the veil removed, the servant could see why Elisha was calm. He could see the angels in battle gear ready to rout the Aramean troops.

Since January, there have been multiple instances of the barrier between the natural and supernatural thinning. The miracles and protections have been reassuring that God is bigger and stronger than any worldly or demonic attacks that have come our way. God will never leave the righteous forsaken.

As it is with Garth, in the book. As awful as the attack is that he undergoes, he is not forsaken. People, willing and unwilling, come to his rescue and protect him from those who would wish death upon the watcher. His suffering remains in part and never completely goes away, but his protection intensifies, and his witness and actions, even wounded, work for the cause of good.

May that be the same for us. May our wounds from when the border thins and we are attacked be a witness to Almighty God, his power and provision.

The day this blog uploads, Wednesday, is my beloved husband Gary’s birthday. Friday is the birthday of book 3 in the Portal Watchers, Wrestle the Stars. Therefore, I’d like to focus on how we honor the births in our lives.

Birthdays are generally joyous occasions, especially when we’re honoring someone we care about. However, if the day belongs to someone no longer in our lives through life veer-offs or death, the day can be uncomfortable, sad, or painful.

A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. John 16:21

Any parent knows that as far as human births go, some are almost impossibly hard and some are too easy to be believed. According to family lore, one of my female ancestors didn’t even realize she was pregnant until she went into labor. And that pain that felt more like indigestion than birthing reputedly lasted less than an hour. That, I can’t imagine. But then I know people who have had long and extended labor sometimes lasting days and ending in a painful or difficult C-section.

I was fortunate enough to experience somewhere in between the two extremes.

Books have their own birthing stories.

The first of the Portal Watchers went from idea to completed rough draft in about six months. The second was a little over a year.

This book? This third book? It took me nearly twenty years to finish.

The reasons for its difficult birthing were myriad.

Not long after I completed book one, then titled Pterosaur or Pterosaur Rescue after its featured dinosaur, it won a contest and I acquired an agent. In the thrill of those steps, I completed book two which then also won an award.

Then my agent dropped me. Readers of the early chapters of book 3 called it confusing. My ego, self-esteem, and belief that this story could do anything at all plummeted.

I shelved it for about a year.

Then some teens who had read one and/or two asked me where the third book was. I pulled it out, dusted it off, and began adding to it again.

“You have too many characters,” said a couple people in my critique group. “There’s too much going on. There are too many locations.”

I felt like pulling my hair. (I probably did. Thankfully, God gave me a lot of it.) I had some basic things that needed doing in this book. I had characters who would reoccur and had to be introduced here. I don’t outline, per se, but make notes about where things should go. I put it away again. Every once in a while, I would add a bit to the end or create more prophecy. But it mostly went nowhere.

Then, a few years ago, my lovely publisher offered a contract for the series. The stipulation was that the entire series be written before any of them were published.

I figuratively tied myself to the computer until this book finally had its draft born. That was hard enough. But it still didn’t work as well as it should. Thanks to advice from Lindele, a favorite reader and dear friend, and Lisa, my editor, we combined scenes and characters. Upped the tension in some places and took out passages that simply didn’t build the story.

It was painful. But the book child finally came to be. And with that one completed, the rest of the series came to fruition fairly quickly.

 The critical characters were on the stage. Some events changed in the process and set the scenes for plot twists I hadn’t planned but loved more than the ones I had planned.

I think the difficult birthings in life are the ones that make what come after worth it. They are the ones we agonize over and persevere through by the grace of God.

I hope you enjoy books 4, 5 and 6. I really do. But remember, without book 3, without Wrestle the Stars, a tale wrestled from my soul, they would not and could not exist.

Therefore, Happy Birthday to my love on this day. And Happy Birthday, on Friday, to the tale that pivots the adventures of the Portal Watchers.