A Remarkable Man, His Strange Vision and an Encounter with Destiny
It was an unexpected encounter. Thirty-year-old me exited the third-floor L’Enfant Plaza office building in downtown D.C., dressed in a pinstripe suit and overcoat to fend off the bitter winter cold, documents in hand, ready for battle. I was a newly minted attorney specializing in constitutional freedoms and civil liberties, and on this day, my mission was to take on “the enemy” in a live radio debate.
At the glass doors of the studio, a producer greeted me and escorted me to the waiting room, explaining that things were running late. After a brief period of toe-tapping and paper-ruffling on my part, the doors opened again, revealing an older man with a thick head of hair and an air of intensity. I recognized him immediately. A few months prior, we had met at a conference where he had expressed a deep admiration for my father, with whom he had shared a nearly twenty-year friendship.
Some men find comfort in small talk. The gentleman across from me was not one of them. He asked why I was there and then launched into a heartfelt panegyric on my father, their political adventures, and the battles of the moment.
He was the kind of man who never spoke down to anyone, yet communicated with personal authenticity, which made me comfortable asking a somewhat personal question:
“May I ask—what is the single most important project, the one that captures your heart, that you are working on at the moment?”
He looked at me, fire in his eyes.
“It’s right here,” he said, reaching for a book hidden under his folded overcoat.
“My very first novel,” he said, holding it with both hands.
To call my father’s friend a prolific writer is an understatement. He had authored dozens of nonfiction books and hundreds of articles, but fiction was uncharted territory for him.
“I’m so surprised,” I said. “I never expected you to enter the world of Melville and Dickens.”
“No, not Melville and Dickens. Something completely different.”
And then he began to spin a tale which was otherworldly yet grounded, full of adventure, battles, conspiracy, faith, power, and humanity—the story of his novel.
I tried to maintain my composure, but I’m confident my jaw dropped. The sheer audacity of this humble, fiery sixty-nine-year-old man, taking on a novel while shouldering responsibilities that few could bear, moved me deeply.
“But excuse me,” I asked, “how did you find the time for this? You must be one of the busiest men I have ever known. How do you stop the world from spinning long enough to write a full-length novel?”
“That’s the secret,” he replied with a wry grin.
“I must know. Please tell me,” I pressed.
He paused, leaned in, and said,
“The entire book took me two hours to write. Not a minute more.”
“Excuse me, sir. How?”
“I hired a ghostwriter. We sat down for two hours with a tape recorder. I gave him all the ideas, answered his questions, and sent him on his way. Voila—a 468-page novel.”
“The guy’s name was Jerry Jenkins. Nice guy. He made it easy for me. It turned out great. I hope people will like it.”
Before I could launch another question, the producer returned.
“Live in five minutes,” she said.
I shook my father’s friend’s hand, hugged him, congratulated him, and began walking to the studio door.
But he called me back.
“Wait a moment. I want to give you something. Take my book. This is my personal copy—the very first one to come off the press. I want you to have it.”
So I did.
And that is how I became the owner of the very first copy of the first edition of Left Behind, by Dr. Tim LaHaye—a ghostwritten novel that would become a series selling more than 70 million copies, with films and ancillary licensing generating over a billion dollars.
It was also the day I decided that someday I would ghostwrite books for remarkable people and help bring their dreams to life.