Sometimes, as writers, we lose sight of the forest for the trees. Focused on the details of our writing life, we forget to rest in the shade of God’s perfect plan.

Over the last three years, I’ve struggled to see God’s plan for my career as a novelist—a struggle I’ve shared with only those closest to me. I journal sporadically, and a glance at entries from the past few years reveals a stream of seemingly unanswered questions: “What’s next, Lord? . . . What do you want me to write, Lord? . . . Why can’t I seem to write that book, Lord?”

Metaphorically, I’ve climbed a hundred trees in search of the forest.

Last week, I found myself in a clearing, the forest in full view.

If you feel a little lost in your writing life, if you’re surrounded by trees but can’t see the forest, I hope you’ll spend a few minutes with me. Maybe what I’ve rediscovered will serve you too.

Early Friday morning, March 24th, I wrote a newsletter for my readers, a newsletter I’d put off much too long. I’ve begun work on a novel they are anticipating, but it isn’t the novel I’m now writing.

On Saturday morning, I revisited the newsletter, not yet sent, and added a few paragraphs. I caught a few typos and rewrote a sentence or two. One sentence I rewrote included a lesson I’m learning and decided to share with my readers:

What I’ve learned—what I continue to learn as I reread my way from Genesis to Revelation, highlighting every passage that mentions a tree or a facet of a tree—is that God cares deeply about trees.

Originally, the sentence read:

. . . as I read my way through the Bible, highlighting . . .

Why the change? At the time, I didn’t know. I just liked the sound of “from Genesis to Revelation.”

Honestly, revisiting the newsletter was an unusual act. I create a lot of content quickly and then hand it off to members of my wonderful copyediting team, who apply their expertise to my text. I’d already posted the newsletter for editing, so making changes meant I was interfering with the team’s schedule. But for reasons I didn’t understand, I felt compelled to read it again and make some minor changes.

On Sunday morning, my day of rest, I picked up a new book I’d just begun reading, Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us about the Nature of God and His Love for Us, by Matthew Sleeth, MD.

When I reached the bottom of page 17, I read these words written by Dr. Sleeth:

I read from Genesis to Revelation, . . .

I might’ve passed over that phrase without much thought, but because I’d just rewritten a sentence, changing “the Bible” to “from Genesis to Revelation,” the familiar phrase read like a road sign alerting me to something ahead. I slowed my pace, every nerve ending seemingly alert, and read the rest of the paragraph:

. . . underlining everything the Bible has to say about trees. And here’s what I found: God has an astounding fondness for trees.

What? I read the sentences again.

Then, with heart racing and tears welling, I set the book aside. Someone else has worn a path from Genesis to Revelation in search of trees? Oh, Lord . . .

If I were writing this story as a novel, it would begin in the middle of a challenging season nearly a decade ago. In the opening scene, the protagonist would have an odd, inexplicable encounter with a tree—an encounter rife with emotional conflict. The encounter would serve as the inciting incident that sets the story in motion.

But this isn’t fiction, and the details of the events that have unfolded since that encounter with the tree are too numerous to include here. Instead, I’ll simply share that during my quiet moment with Dr. Sleeth’s book on Sunday morning, the Spirit affirmed the direction I’m heading with my next novel.

A direction that has felt mostly uncharted. A path I feared I was wandering alone. A journey for which I’ve had no map.

In retrospect, as often happens, I now see that God’s plan was perfectly charted and that I’ve never wandered alone. At first, I thought my trek began with an odd encounter with a tree. But maybe that encounter stands as a marker on a road I began walking years before, a memorial to an encounter with God himself, an encounter eventually leading to a journey from Genesis to Revelation in search of trees.

As I look back now, I see many markers along the path I’ve wandered, places where God, unbeknownst to me then, was leading as he put pieces of his plan in place. A recent marker stands in my Fiction Crafters Cohort Facebook group. In response to a post I wrote, another writer recommended a book she’d read: Reforesting Faith.

 Sometimes, as writers, we lose sight of the forest for the trees. We believe we’re meant to write, maybe even called to write. Then the path we’re following becomes overgrown, unclear. We get a little lost.

When we feel lost, we need only look back. Look for the markers of God’s work and goodness on the trail behind us. We need only remind ourselves that God is faithful. He is trustworthy. Then we can rest in the shade of his perfect plan.