The Reluctant Author-----Jocelyn Faire

I must confess to introducing myself as the Reluctant Author.

My journey into official writing began ... ten years ago.

I had often been told I had a way with words, frequently asked to speak. Life was full and rich, busy with a part time nursing career, raising three fabulous children, supporting my husband's business, working in the church, the community ... one of those Blessed Lives. And I was grateful.

And then everything changed in a moment, on an icy road, and I received that phone call from hell that no parent wants ... And the three young people that sat at my festive dining room table two months before, would never again come home for Christmas.

After the events of February 2005, I felt a compelling, an urge to write my thoughts and struggles. I had been a long-time journaller, and now I wrote my questions and hashed through my doubts with God. (He didn't write back, other than what he had already written.) Things were better when I wrote, it was one outlet for grief and brought clarity to confusion. Those early days, I also walked and walked, and as one heavy foot stepped in front of the other, I knew that I would need to share my story, some day.

I argued with God, tried to negotiate a better outcome for the way the grief impacted my life, my husband, my surviving daughter. God is a tough negotiator, but He is kind and infinitely patient, more patient with me, than I am with myself. (As I type this Twyla Paris is singing in the background ... You are God alone, and right now in the good times and the bad, from before time began, You are God alone.)

As the calling on my life to write grew in intensity, I started taking writing classes. I had always been an A student, and would not want a B-grade novel here. I discovered God's humour, we went out for coffee, and he brought people into my life that supported the journey of writing my memoir. I told God I would write, but I expected him to be in charge of promotions and advertising. He showed me a Social Media course to take, along with the Creative Writing certificate through the University of Calgary.

Verses that have carried me on this journey, all from The Message.

You have all this evidence confirmed by your own eyes and ears. Shouldn't you be talking about it? Isaiah 48:6

I show you what to do, where to go. Isaiah 48:17

He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate. He kept his hand on me to protect me. Isaiah 49:2

My father had been a poet, and I was also drawn to the genre, with its intensity of language, the imagery, the play on words. It spoke to my sense of God's mystery, his beauty and often his hiddeness.

HOLDING ON

What am I holding on to and why can't I let go?
Holding on to dreams I've lost
Holding on to promises of love, deserted in the storm
I am holding on to the quest for Beauty, in the midst of ugly
I am holding on to Hope, in the midst of hopelessness
And in it all I am holding on to you God,
But wondering if your love will fail, if you will bail?
Will your promises fall flat?
In my head I know ... in my heart I doubt.
A thousand petitions that I have given voice to,
I can only groan.

I have followed the rules of prayer
Tripping over the caveats added, when things go horribly wrong.
Pray specifically, pray in God's will, pray scripture into your lives,
pray the Lord's prayer, pray without ceasing, pray about everything,
Do not be anxious, but pray ... pray your worries away.
pray ... Pray ... PRAY
Prayer changes people not things.
Does prayer not change a thing?
When so much is at stake?
Can you know the desperation of my heart and still be deaf?
And I am given the answer you gave Job.
And ... I am silent.
YOU are God and I am not.
You hold the trump card,
But you don't crush me with it...
You allow me to turn it over.
And it is always the King of Hearts.

Jocelyn

Jocelyn blogs at http://whoistalking.wordpress.com. She is the author of "Who is Talking Out of My Head? Grief as an out of Body Experience".