Letter From The Highlands - August 2003
By Anne Perry

It is very good to be busy.  I think to have nothing you care about doing, no passion to follow or fulfil, is a kind of death.  But I must admit I have been pushing it to the limit lately.  I left myself too little time to finish my second book set in World War One.  I leave home for America on September 7^th, and do not get back until approximately October 24^th, so the manuscript absolutely has to be delivered before I go.  And naturally it has to be the very best I can make it – from my point of view – and from my publisher’s view it has to be good enough!  I have to see that the two coincide.

All of which means I need to do five or six drafts of it, and it is roughly 520 pages long.

I had an excellent trip down to the outskirts of London to visit with my agent, and we worked for four days, morning, afternoon, evening, on designing a fourth draft, and get ready to be away from home for just over six weeks.  I have three weeks of that time left – and am more or less on course, but it means working 8.30 a.m. to about 7.30 p.m. every day but the Sabbath.  But it’s coming!

And if it is easy to do, then it isn’t enough.  If a thing didn’t stretch you, then you could have done more, so by definition, it wasn’t your best.  If we are not doing our best this time round, then when are we going to?  This is not a try-out, this is the real thing!

We all need a rest some time, a break, a change of pace, a time to sleep, a time to consider where we are going, re-assess what we are aiming for, but it should be short, and not too frequent, or we could spend all the time thinking and none of it accomplishing.

Some people say that the Lord made plenty of time.  I have a feeling that how ever much any of us have, when the last day comes we are going to feel there was not enough for all there was to do.  Are you ready for God to call ‘Time’s up!  Hand in your papers’?  I’m not.  I have far too much to do, to learn, to improve on, to try one more time, and get it right!

I feel as if I could sleep for a week!  But there is too much to do to waste time.  And yet there is also wisdom in resting when you need to, in not trying to solve problems when you are tired.  Power naps are marvellous; I couldn’t get by without them.  Just ten or fifteen minutes at the right time and you can start again, with more energy and a clearer mind.

And there are spiritual equivalents to ‘power naps’, times when we lay our burdens down and stop trying to address them ourselves and simply say ‘Lord, I need help’.  I have at last began to learn that there are times when I should simply say ‘Please help me’, rather than list the ways I need help, or the things to be dealt with, or how they should be solved.

I have one thing in common with some of the great minds of human history, the more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know.  At times that can be comforting, especially when I think I ought to be able to work out how something that can be done, and it looks to be impossible.  Then I tell myself that the fact I cannot see a way does not mean much.  I do not know everything, and I am not required to.

I suppose I am back to the same old thing – do your job, and trust that the Lord will do His.  The fact that you cannot see around the corner does not matter, you are not required to.  That is so easy to say, and so hard to do.

We have had the most achingly beautiful weather here, day after day when a haze of mist begins, and then the sun breaks through and the sky is blue, the fields harvest gold, and the sea blue beyond.  It doesn’t make sense, but the clouds never seem to get between us and the sun!  You would think they would have to.  Most of the roses seem to be over, only a few pink and yellow, and a lot of dark red ones remain.  Because it has been so dry, some leaves are falling.  We have to water most things – which for the North of Scotland is unusual, but then we have been doing that since February, which is supposed to be the wettest month of the year.  In the south, the temperature has broken all records since they began in the 1600’s!  Not exactly yesterday, although in history I suppose it is not so long.  According to the archaeologisst who work in the field between my house and the village, this region has been continuously occupied for the last 4,000 years!

Still it feels to me as if things are changing, and time is moving even more rapidly.  It isn’t that a day has gone so much as a chunk of a couple of weeks.  Certainly there is no time to waste, no time to say ‘I’ll do it another day’.

Thank goodness for the Sabbath when we are commanded to change speed, and think of eternal things, try to regain perspective on what matters forever, and put time in its right place.

Now it is late and I must go to bed, so I can get up tomorrow morning and do my best.

I doubt I shall be able to write in September, or October either, but in November I shall return, I hope with much treasures of the spirit, and hope for learning, faith and trust.