Finally Time to Dance: A Novel

Finally Time to Dance: A Novel
By Mamie Thompson

Mamie Thompson is my friend. I know her as many things. I know her as a devoted wife, a wonderful mother, and a gifted speaker and writer. I also know her as a woman of deep faith who has walked on water while the storm raged around her. I know her as a woman of God who has faced heartbreaking life changes and has overcome them. I also know her as an anointed voice of healing for those who have lost people they love and are courageously moving forward to receive the joy and blessings the Lord is still holding out to them.

In 2001 Mamie lost her beloved husband and best friend to brain cancer. As friends, we watched the Lord carry her and their five beautiful children into a new season of life. We watched their family be blessed and continue to live boldly, and then we rejoiced when the Lord blessed Mamie with love again. When Mamie and Richard married in 2004, friends and family gathered and celebrated. It was obvious this union was of the Lord.

Sometimes, though, even things of the Lord are not easy to receive. Sometimes questions set in. Sometimes peace has to be made with what is behind before we can move forward.

In her debut fiction book Finally Time to Dance, Mamie courageously delves into the blessings and trials of love after death. It is a portrait of fear, healing, and restoration in an honest expression of the heart’s struggle to receive great things after deep loss.

While Finally Time to Dance is a fictional expression of Mamie’s journey, it is more than a cathartic novel written by a woman facing her own trials. There is an anointing of freedom and healing that allows readers who are themselves widows or widowers to be found in all the honesty of their emotions, dreams, and fears. It validates the struggle within while encouraging the reader to trust that indeed the Lord has a plan to give hope and a future, one filled with good things and blessings.

For friends and family of those who have faced death and are learning to love again, it is a view into the heart and mind that people who have never experienced such loss cannot know. It is heart wrenching and enlightening all at the same time. The honesty it offers also bridges gaps in understanding and opens doors that give freedom and safety for honest conversation.

One thing you won’t find in Finally Time to Dance is an ending all tied up in a pretty bow. Instead, you find the characters willing to step into the possibility of the future God is offering them. The ending may seem abrupt, leaving the reader feeling as though the ground has been jerked out from under them, wondering what is next. Is that not a good description of those who have lost their spouse and are still seeking to live? While it may feel awkward, it is the appropriate ending. Mamie wisely rests the responsibility for the ending upon the reader, which is where it truly lies. As one anointed to show the power of God to heal and restore, Mamie does not leave readers with a tidy little package that holds all the answers. Instead, she leaves them with something greater--the hope that it is truly Finally Time to Dance.

To find out more about this excellent book, get a free preview, or order your own copy, please visit Finally Time to Dance at AuthorHouse.com.

You can find out more about Mamie and contact her via her website.

About the book:

Alone with her best friend for the last time, Megan walked slowly to his side. She breathed deeply and tried to stop the tears as she looked down at the crayon drawings and wadded tissues that his children had laid on their father’s chest.

“Catch you on the flip side, Bud.”

Megan Hardin walked out of the church that day knowing God was holding her hand. What she didn’t expect was for Him to give it in marriage.

When Ron Wellbourne befriends Megan and finds his way back to God, he falls in love with the lovely young widow and sets out, successfully, to make her family his own. Megan stands amazed at God’s grace, thankful He’s led her to love again.

After only a few weeks of marriage, however, Megan begins to question God’s direction. Did she misunderstand? Should she have risked loving, and possibly losing, again?

When their new life begins to unravel, Ron and Megan wonder if they will ever see the day when it’s Finally Time to Dance.

I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up on my Own

I have this tendency not to write when life becomes "intense", which really means when I feel I am spending more time picking gravel out of my knees because I just fell again than I am actually moving forward.

My friend Iona is amazing to me. She can be so completely transparent about her victories, encouragement, discouragement, and failings. Today I was reading a book by Lisa Whelchel (www.LisaWhelchel.com), and she talked about her failings and weaknesses a lot more openly than most folks I know. Folks who can lay their heart out there for all to see amaze me.

Now, the irony is that I have been told repeatedly that the strength of my writing is in my willingness to be transparent and vulnerable. People want to know they are not the only ones who struggle, tumble, and pick gravel from their knees. Of course, I can only speak for me, but I like to know I'm not in this struggle alone, and I doubt I am the only one who feels that way.

As I sat here and thought about that, I think there are primarily two groups of people who like to know they are not alone in the "gravel picking" department. I think the first group likes to point at others' failures and use them as excuses for how they are. Perhaps that is cynical. I tend to think some folks call things cynical because the truth of the statement hits too close to home, but then, I could be cynical about that as well. Anyway, the second group that likes to know they aren't alone in picking gravel are the ones who desire to be the best they can be, to be a good and faithful servant. Sometimes it is nice to know that even those who "have it all together" really don't. It gives us hope that we are not beyond change. It helps us be encouraged that someday we won't trip over that same rock...again. Somehow knowing others struggle make us feel less like failures and more like works in progress.

In theory, we shouldn't need anyone else to help us with that. The Bible says that He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6). Paul says he moves forward to take hold of the prize, not that he already has, but that he is in the process (Philippians 3). In fact, Paul says the following:

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things..."

Yesterday was one of those days that left me lying face down on the path to eternity, and while it involved an abundance of humility, it was not an act of worship that put me there.

Simply stated, things that were unresolved built up to ungodly levels (Note that if things are not addressed and settled to the glory of God, they are unresolved at an ungodly level, so we had long since taken a flying leap into ungodly levels of unresolved issues). The result was an even more ungodly explosion of anger, hurt, and accusations. Beloved Husband is out of town, so he didn't see the full display, but he heard it. By the time the children went to bed, they had ample opportunity to witness Mommy repenting and explaining that even when someone hurts you or makes you angry, voices elevated to high decibel levels are not the way to handle the situation. The children were forgiving. Beloved Hubby understood the root issues and was forgiving, and when the dust had settled, I lay in the floor and cried.

I hadn't just stumbled. I had taken a header, and from what I could see, I was pretty disfigured. I emailed my friend MaryB and confessed everything. She was loving and kind, and then said the most Realistic thing she could. She said, "But I say, 'Get up. He sees your tears. He knows your humanity. He also knows your familiy's humanity. And He loves because He truly knows YOU.'"

Sounds a lot like Paul, in my opinion. Perhaps Paul's words could be paraphrased, "Instead of lying on the floor crying because I blew it, I get up and move on because I know my righteousness is not dependent on my ability because I have none. My righteousness is dependent on my faith in Christ Jesus who has already become righteousness for me. He is already my perfection, and I am in the process of becoming like Him. I'm not like Him yet, and I won't get there by lying on the floor crying. I choose to press on with faith in Him to make me who He has said I am."

So I embraced Mary's directive, and I got off the floor. I blew it yesterday. I blew it some today. I'm in the process.

You know what really makes me stop and think, though? What utterly fascinates me in all this is my real role in this process. Do you notice that Paul never mentions what he can do to overcome all of his failures? Paul has no four-point plan on how to modify his behavior or stop committing a particular sin. To the contrary, Paul says he recognizes that he will never achieve anything on his own, and his solution is not to "modify" the flesh but to let it die. In fact, Paul considers any effort he can make for his own righteousness to be rubbish, and instead, longs to embrace the absolute necessity of righteousness through Christ as the only means to eternal life. Paul is completely convinced he can do nothing for himself.

So where does change come from? In the two scriptures I just mentioned, we find two simple answers:
1. Dying with Christ and taking His righteousness.
2. Letting God do His job and get out of His way. Notice that Paul does not say, "And if you work really hard, you'll finally get there." No, Paul said that the Father, who began a good work in you, is faithful to complete it.

The last thing I want to mention as a necessity is the filling and leading of the Holy Spirit. Romans 12: 1 and 2 say, " 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. "

How is your mind renewed?
1. Dying to yourself and living in Christ.
2. Letting God do His work in you.
3. Letting the Holy Spirit lead you into all truth (John 16:13).

I won't tell you it is an easy journey. It's not. It hurts. If it were easy, every human being would be flocking to it. However, if you want answers, I got those. I have ALL the answers because I know there is only one Answer, and even when I am lying on my face in the gravel where I just fell over the most obvious rock in the world, He is still the Answer, and when I call to Him, He is faithful to answer.

Praying you remeber that even when the questions are hard or you think you might be bombing your test, there is only one Answer, and He is faithful to answer you when you call to Him...

Different

Well, I have been avoiding my blog because I couldn't figure out how to make the title appear again. I changed from the old version to the new, and my titles disappeared. Being the computer semi-literate that I am, I spent an obnoxious amount of time trying to fix it only to end up muttering under my breath while threatening the safety of an inanimate object. THEN, this incredibly handsome (and smart, I also love him for his brains) man I live with took a look at it, and two minutes later, he hands me my computer with title intact. Just another reason I thank God that wonderful man's title is My Husband.

Anyway, isn't it funny where a week can take you? I'll level with you. I was struggling last week. Physically I was exhausted. My children had been sick with a respiratory thing going around. My son required a middle-of-the-night trip to the ER to deal with a double ear infection that left him screaming in pain. About the time they were sleeping well and we weren't alternating between steamy bathrooms and the deck where it was a nice 60% humidity and mid-30s temp, My Husband got hit. Now, WonderMan (and he is) is not whimp. The whole thing about how men are babies when they are sick does not apply to Wonder Man. This stuff knocked him for a loop. Usually, if the kids are sick, one of us will go to church and the other stays home with the kids. The kids still weren't up for church, and Rob was not up to taking care of them, not even sitting up and watching a movie. My Man was sick. It took about three days for him to breathe without being wheezy, and then...yep...I got it. I don't think I've been as sick as anyone else in the family, but my head has hurt, and breathing has been challenging. So, physically, I was exhausted.

Mentally, I was exhausted. Mental and physical exhaustion are hard to separate as you most likely know.

Emotionally, I don't even have an adjective. The only thing that came to mind was "raw", but I think I was pretty shut down. Granted, I was very easily affected, but is that really "raw"?

Spiritually, well, spiritually is always what seems to determine how much the first three interact, and I have to say the interaction wasn't good. Now, I didn't say I wasn't in a good place spiritually. Sometimes you can be a in good place and it still be hard. When a person is pouring forth before God and seeking the Lord and the Lord is doing a mighty work of healing or cleaning or drawing or really any kind of speaking, it can be intense. I have had a few really intense weeks.

Thankfully, I finally got a breakthrough that totally rocked me today. I've been struggling in an area, and I couldn't figure out the root. I had pretty much shut down in a lot of ways, and I couldn't pinpoint the cause. I didn't know where it had started, and I wasn't sure how to come out of it. Well, yesterday I felt like the Lord gave me the strategy for coming out of it, and today I started implementing it in faith. The Lord honored that, and today He revealed the source of the issue and then confirmed it by bringing to mind a pointed prophetic word of healing I received last fall. So now, I am sleepy but beaming. Truly, it is amazing the difference a week makes.

Actually, you know what? The week had nothing to do with it. The issue started over a year ago. A week did not break the hold. The real truth is what a difference an encounter with God makes. If you've ever been at a place of desperation where He intervened, you know what I mean. If you are pouring out before Him and pleading for help and are waiting, you know what I mean. If you have never known that kind of desperation or that kind of passionate seeking or if you've never had that kind of encounter with God, you need one. When you've had one, you'll know what I mean. There is nothing like it, and you won't be like you are after you've had it.

Isn't it glorious the difference an encounter with God can make?

Praying that wherever you are and whatever you need you will have the encounter with God that makes the difference....