I’m not usually the type to stroll into a bookstore and walk out ten minutes later with a book I carelessly thumbed through. You’ll find me sitting in the aisle, nose pressed to pages, leaned against the wood bookshelf and making absolute certain that the $15-$20 is worth the read. Finding a good read is no joking matter: life is too short for mindless and meaningless reading.

I am especially particular in what I call “The Jesus Section” : the section of the bookstore that is rarely populated but holds a special place in my heart, always leading me to the books that I hold when God meets me for breakfast every morning. This being said, when I stumbled to the cash register with a book I hadn’t even opened, I was taking major risks. For some reason or another, as I was carefully scanning the shelves from top to bottom, this one in particular caught my eye. The cover wasn’t extravagant and the title wasn’t unbelievably creative or catchy; it was almost as if God was in my ear saying, “Abby, just pick up the dang book.”

I picked up I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thorton and was knocked off of my chair about two pages in. The words I was then attentively reading were the thoughts in my head that I couldn’t piece the words together to describe. It was as if a much more “in-tune to self” version of myself was writing a book to tell me exactly how I was feeling, and exactly how I needed to take steps forward, take steps back and above all, stop right in my place to realize that I had no clue what loving God meant.

In writing this, I began to try and explain why and how each individual line perfectly suited the turmoil that was inside of my head, keeping me awake at night and stranding me in a lost state-of-mind. Instead, I soon realized that the quotes that stood out to me spoke for themselves and maybe, hopefully, they would speak to some of you just as they did me. In the novel, Grace talks about the importance of letting go of our own expectations and grabbing hold of the adventure God places in front of us daily. In the most beautiful way, she conveys these ideals for them to jump off the page, grab you by the shoulders, shake you and say, “Stop what you’re doing and just listen. Just slow down and know Me.” These are the words that stopped me in my tracks and made me slow down just long enough to learn that God will meet me anywhere: in the car before school, at the bookstore with some coffee or smack dab in the middle of a test - He was always there and I just had no clue where and how to look for Him.

“I attributed the hunger to ‘normal things’ I wanted and didn’t have, and I turned to Jesus to provide the things I needed to feed that hunger...I had no idea how empty I really was, or that the cavernous hunger was really for God himself, and that really did mean something bigger than I’d always thought.”

“We don’t even know what we’re missing by not craving Him as the one thing worth trading everything else for.”

“ ‘Okay God,’ I whispered. ‘I’m here. I don’t know where to start but I’m here. And I’m not leaving until we figure this out. I know if You are who You say You are, if everything I’ve always known and heard about you is true, then my life won’t make sense until it’s all about you.’ “

“I knew he was pursuing me. I could feel it in the restlessness in my heart, the desire I had for more, the way my mind churned when I lay in bed at night awake. But even though I sensed his pursuit of me, I still didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Please stop. Just stop. Stop what you’re doing and love Him back. He loves you in a way too personal to comprehend. He’s for you. He’s worth it. And He waits.”

“I never knew that without dragging myself up the steep cliff of mental ascent and forcing it to be so, God really could become bigger in my heart than anything I’d ever wanted… The path is a lot more narrow than you think.”

Grace Thorton’s work on “letting go and letting God” is simply breathtaking and a work I would recommend a million times; the $17 was most definitely worth it.

Nothing with God is a coincidence, not even the book you come across while scanning the shelves.

Thornton, Grace. I Don't Wait Anymore. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. Print.