out of order.
Ever since I started writing my new book, I’ve been writing out of order.
I’ve been writing this story off and on since last December, and until last Thursday, I didn’t have a single completed chapter. Instead, I had about 20,000 free-floating words, a series of random scenes that didn’t connect to any overarching plot. It just felt like an unorganized mess, and it’s been driving me crazy all summer long.
I’ve never written like this before. I’m not a plotter by any means—I’m a discovery writer through and through—but for the most part, I’ve always written in order from start to finish, piecing together the story as I go. So this year it’s been hard for my brain to see progress or keep track of any forward momentum when I can’t see the story. My lack of chronological narrative truly made me feel like I hadn’t written anything at all.
It’s been discouraging, to say the least.
But last week, I felt inspired to go back to the beginning—my incomplete chapter one. As I wrote, I was able to piece together the scenes I’d written months before, taking out details that no longer applied and adding in new information that I didn’t have before. The words didn’t come effortlessly but they came naturally. Chapter one finally started to make sense.
So why did I have to write all those scenes out of order? Why has this year of writing felt so…unsettling?
Over the past eight months, I’ve gotten to know my characters without any sort of linear progression. I think I needed to see them in all kinds of situations and conversations before I could understand what the beginning of my story needed to look like, sound like, and feel like.
Sometimes it feels like we’re out of order—in every sense of the phrase. Sometimes we feel like things aren’t happening in the way they’re supposed to, like our lives just aren’t working. But it’s in those moments when we feel most out of sorts that we need to remember that we have a Father who understands what true order is. In God’s view, there is no out of order—everything’s working properly, and everything’s in its right time and right place.
Why is it so hard to trust in that? Why do we impatiently grab the pen out of His hands, insisting that we, in our narrow-minded human way, think we know better than He does? As the Author and Finisher of our Faith, He’s asking us to trust in Him and His timing. He’s asking us to believe that our life isn’t a series of random scenes that don’t connect to any overarching plot. He’s asking us to let Him tell the greatest story that’s ever been told.
His story. Our story. A love story older than time itself.
I think this was a lesson I needed to learn and one I will need to learn again: I’m not in control. As much as I like to think I am, I am not the author. But I can be an instrument in His hands. And the next time I feel like things are out of order, maybe I’ll look up and say, “You see the end from the beginning. You know more than me.”
And with a sigh that is both grateful and relieved, I can step back, drop the pen, and watch the magic unfold. Scene by scene. Chapter by chapter.
I can’t wait to see what happens next.
