I didn’t set out to be an author. From childhood, my career goals were first an airline pilot, then a professional baseball player, and finally a physician. As I matured, I realized the first one was a fantasy, the second one highly unlikely (although I did play a bit of semi-pro baseball), while the third was what God had in mind for me. I didn’t realize God also planned for me to write, but events after the death of my first wife made that path clear to me. In none of these did I have an ultimate goal of fame and fortune—well, maybe the baseball thing, but nothing since then. But when I got my first writing contract, the dreams began. At my first writer’s conference, I was awestruck by the published writers there. These were people whose names were household words—maybe not in my household, but I was just getting started, so I could be excused for not knowing all of them. But surely they were celebrities in their hometowns. Most certainly they had to stop and give autographs in the grocery store or dry cleaners. And undoubtedly they lived in the lap of luxury. After all, they were…