“I’m Sorry… We Sold Out.”

Have you ever looked back and suddenly realized God had been weaving a story with you for years…long before you could see what He was doing? 🦋

Yesterday, after church, we went to lunch with a friend for his birthday. Before we headed home, I decided I wanted to stop at Barnes & Noble at Easton.

There was something I wanted to know.

I don’t really know which bookstores carry Gracie’s Flight of Faith. My publisher doesn’t tell me who orders the book or where it is being placed. I have watched it become unavailable and sell out on different websites and in different countries, but somehow I had been under the impression that Barnes & Noble probably didn’t actually carry Gracie on its shelves.

So I walked up to the register and simply asked the cashier,

“Do you carry Gracie’s Flight of Faith?”

She said, “Just a second. I’ll check for you.”

She searched her computer and then looked up at me.

“I’m sorry. We sold out.”

I remember thinking, You sold out?

Then she asked if I wanted her to check the other Barnes & Noble locations.

“Yes, please.”

She searched again—and then told me they were sold out too.

For a moment, I just stood there taking in her words.

She had no idea that the little girl with butterfly wings on that book was me.

She didn’t know that more than three decades ago, during one of the hardest seasons of my life, I asked God why my life was so hard.

And He whispered to my heart,

“Your life is like a butterfly.”

I folded my arms like wings and began to flap them.

“Okay, Father—like a butterfly.”

I didn’t understand what He meant then. I couldn’t see what He was doing. I only knew that I recognized His voice, and I chose to believe Him.

More than three decades later, He asked me another question:

“Do you think the butterfly could see outside the cocoon?”

The very next day, I began writing the words He had spoken into my life. Those words became Gracie’s Flight of Faith.

And now I was standing inside Barnes & Noble, hearing that Gracie had sold out.

Only God could have written this story.

I think this is how our God works. He speaks. He moves. He writes. He whispers.

Sometimes His answer comes in a month. Sometimes it comes in a year, ten years, thirty years—or even across a lifetime.

But just because we cannot see what He is doing does not mean He has forgotten what He said.

Sometimes we are still inside the cocoon, unable to see the beautiful story He is creating around us.

That is why we keep believing.

That is why we keep waiting.

And that is why we write down what He speaks to our hearts.

“Write my answer plainly on tablets… This vision is for a future time… If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place.”
—Habakkuk 2:2–3 NLT

Yesterday, standing in Barnes & Noble, I felt as though God gently reminded me:

I never forgot the words I whispered to you.

If God has placed something in your heart and it seems slow in coming, don’t give up. Write it down. Hold it close. Keep walking with Him.

The butterfly cannot see outside the cocoon—but God can. 🦋

My story… God’s glory.