What has writing done for me? Well more than I ever thought even possible.

I remember sitting in my high school English class and being just a “C” student. It was hard for me. To get into college I couldn’t even test into English 101. I would have had to go three below and start with English 097. I mean, you really can’t much lower. So for years I have always thought of myself as a terrible writer and that my English writing sucked.

By the time I was around 22 or 23 years old I was actually able to test directly into 101. Don’t ask me how I did it because I hadn’t had any more education. I guess in that short time I had somehow magically matured in this area (just don’t ask me how).

Then one day my beautiful daughter who had been full of life contracts E. coli. Little did I know that first day that my life was about to change forever. It was through that tragic event I started a simple little daily journal that I shared with family and friends to let them know what was happening to her at the time. When I started to receive comments like, “Wow, Kristena you are such a good writer” or “I felt like I was there because of what you wrote,” I was kind of shocked. For anyone to call me a “writer” I just thought they were nuts. But you know the old saying that when you start to hear something over and over again, whether positive or negative, you start to believe it.

This actually got me to thinking about possibly writing a book about her life. At the time I still had hope she would live and wouldn’t it have been awesome to have a story that was so bad turn out to have a happy ending. Unfortunately, God didn’t intend it to be the happy ending we were all hoping for and he took her home. For obvious reason, none of us are happy that Mari is now in heaven.

However, there is a happy ending to this story after all. It has been through that terrible tragedy that God has finally shown me what He wants me to do with my life. He wants me to become a writer. He has shown me I have natural talent. Yes, I have a long way to go before I will have a published book as I have a lot to learn still about this craft but it feels good inside to know that this has been God’s plan for me all along.

My life has felt like a tumultuous mess throughout the years. God has allowed it to happen. I always wondered why. Maybe it was so that when He showed me that I am a writer I would be just that much better for it. It would help me to better understand what I need to do and how to move forward. Isn’t it just awesome when things like this happen in our lives?