I was already in my late 30s, which is why I was called a second career student, which

I thought was adorable because it implied I had a first career, which I did not, unless

being a complete screw-up is now considered a career. So when I was 44 and wrote a memoir

that became a bestseller, I had no experience at being successful. I had no idea how to

handle it or who to turn to for guidance because no one wants to hear how freaked out you

feel about something most people would consider to be a good thing. On a Monday night of that

first tour, a man in the book signing line held my book pastrix to his chest and said,

I hope this is as big as the shack, and I looked at him like he had just insulted me. The shack,

if you don't know, is a Christian novel by Paul Young that sold tens of millions of copies.

It's a well-loved book that just doesn't suit my taste as I'm not one to mix my religion with

quite so much send mentality. Anyhow, that same week, after being in a different city each day

and signing a gazillion books and having a reporter from the Washington Post follow me around,

and then having audience members wanting selfies with me, there was a headline in the Huffington

Post that read, can Nadia Bullsweber save liberal Christianity? And it brought on a small panic attack.

I was on a ride that kept speeding up and nothing in my life so far had prepared me for it,

and I desperately needed wisdom for how to hold on. That Saturday, my publisher sent me to a book

fair in New Orleans with three other authors, a mystery writer, a novelist, and a historian.

The novelist was a kind older man with a warm smile whose name I didn't catch, but who I was

sat next to at dinner. Him on my left and my editor on my right, and I asked his name and what

kind of books he wrote, and my editor leaned over and said, Nadia, Paul wrote a little book called

The Shack. Later that night, I swallowed my pride and asked him if we could talk privately,

and I told him everything I was feeling about that week and how I just really needed some guidance.

...