I was speaking at a conference this past weekend and someone asked why I write. Ever since my first book, that’s been an easy question for me. Besides the fact that I write because I can’t not write, I received an email after my first book released.
In the email a reader told me she’d bought my book at a writer’s conference and really enjoyed it. Then she went on to tell me I’d made an error–I called a respiratory therapist a respiratory nurse.
Uh-uh! No way. But she went on to give me the page number and there it was–respiratory nurse. To this day I have no idea why I typed those two words. I’d never in my life called a respiratory therapist a respiratory nurse. Not that I’m in the medical field, but in the past, my husband and his mother had been in and out of the hospital enough that we probably owned a wing of the hospital. I know how hospitals work!
I thanked her, and she went on to tell me she’d been a nurse for thirty years. Lightbulb moment! My next book, A Promise to Protect, was about a doctor so I asked if she’d be willing to read my manuscript to make sure I didn’t make any dumb mistakes.
She graciously agreed, and caught several mistakes I’d made. After I turned the book in, I wanted to give the nurse something for her time and trouble, and since she’d met me at a writers conference, I thought I’d gift her writing craft book. She turned me down flat, saying that after she saw what I went through she would pass on being a writer.
Then she went on to tell me that she’d already received the best present I could give her. That she believed God had her to come to the conference just to meet me so she could help with the book she worked on.
It turned out that she had the same problem my heroine had. As a child, my heroine had overheard her mother tell her father: “I told you we never should’ve had that second kid.” My heroine was that second kid and from that day forward, believed she wasn’t wanted, that she wasn’t worthy.
The nurse went on to tell me her mother never loved her, but seeing how my character handled the problem let her know she could do the same thing. I’m sitting at my computer reading the email with tears streaming down my cheeks.My book had actually changed her life, and her family’s life.
And that’s why I write fiction. To change lives. To show the world that Christians have problems just like everyone else, but we solve them differently than the world (often after we’ve tried to fix our problems on our own.) In the end we know there’s no problem God can’t handle.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1 This is one of my many favorite verses.
Christians Read 