It was never my dream to be a published author. Born in 1953, I was an introvert reared in a Christian family with three siblings. Once in school, I was a capable student. In seventh grade as an assignment, I wrote a dedication for our yearbook, it was selected, and after being heavily edited used that year. I got a free yearbook and was the youngest dedication writer to ever be chosen. My 9th grade English teacher had strict writing rules; we had to keep a journal she reviewed but didn’t grade; so, writing for her class was very formal. I didn’t disklike writing and didn’t keep a journal until my husband’s stem cell transplant. I gave my life to God when I was twelve and wanted to be a foreign missionary. I met my husband-to-be, John, a returning Vietnam army soldier ten days before my seventeenth birthday when he was twenty-one. My focus then was no longer school but my relationship and future with John. I graduated as the valedictorian of my class in 1971, my goal then was to be a medical laboratory technologist, so John and I could marry and start our lives together.So, I earned an Associate Degree in Applied Sciences, from what is now Columbus State Community College. During the last six months of my program, I worked part-time evenings at The Ohio State University Hospital Blood Bank while interning at Doctor’s North Hospital during the day. John and I were married in May 1973, and without a fulltime job on graduation, I accepted a non-degreed position at the Central Ohio American Red Cross. I was bored and within six months, I told the laboratory manager I was going to be looking for a hospital job. So, she gave me a raise and sent me to learn a specialized blood component process. But more importantly, I was finally able to get involved with the other staff and the other procedures being done in the laboratory to process and test donated whole blood.Strangely, with God’s divine plan for John and my lives, I spent forty years there, where with many other dedicated staff meeting the challenges of the growing technology. When I became the supervisor of the Freeze Laboratory, I started writing formal laboratory procedural documents.I was never bored again and at one time had two call beepers that redirected my personal life. And God obviously knew the developing Red Cross Laboratory was a much better place for me then a hospital laboratory because of the development of the blood banking industry.My two-year associate degree was never looked on favorably, so in 1992 with two teenagers, I went back to school. I earned a BS in Biomedical Communication from The Ohio State University in only two years while working full time. Then in my last ten years at the Red Cross, I became a National Red Cross authorized writer of procedural documents, which I enjoyed.On Good Friday, 1988, I wrote my first piece inspired by the Holy Spirit, Resurrection. It was only a six-line prose piece, that I wrote on the back of a yellow McDonald’s napkin at stop lights. I never worked another Good Friday, and I always wrote what came to my heart and mind as worship pieces. At some point, I started to write worship Christmas pieces, then as the Holy Spirit moved me, I wrote whenever I was inspired. I also wrote three novels during those years, Sarah’s Search (2018), Leah’s Resolution (2019), and Elizabeth’s Journey (2nd Edition 2020). Publishers did not take unsolicited manuscripts then, so my novels journeyed from floppy disk, hard copies in a closet, to other storage media. So, my path to being a writer was initially work related and later because the Holy Spirit moved me.As the time of my husband’s death was approaching, he asked me to write his memorial card, which he never saw, Endless Love (2014). So, my time with John was three years as a dating couple and forty-one years of married life, of course, we still have eternity to share. In 2022, the Holy Spirit stirred me to write John’s story, to honor his life and service-related death, Mustard Seed Faith, A Vietnam Veteran’s Life Journey into Eternity (2023). I think of it as John’s story, his hope was to minister to veterans, especially those who served in a war, to tell them that God loved them and had a good plan for them still. That God would do for them what he had done for John. The book includes our journal of his treatment for Primary Myelofibrosis, his hundreds of transfusions (thank you donors), a successful stem cell transplant, ten post-transplant surgeries, his bone marrow failure, progression to AML, and ends after his is death.Our daughter, Tammy, posted the daily journal pieces on FACEBOOK as Mustard Seed Faith. We did believe in his transplant and his recovery, have no doubt, but God had other plans. John’s book also covers my dealings post-transplant with his transplant hospital in my hope to improve their program and the outcomes of other stem cell transplant patients. It also includes the cumbersome dealings with John’s disability/death claim with the Veterans Administration.The two individual pieces I mentioned, and many others became a four-book set of prose, Dragonfly Faith, Yada God with Me (2022). I also published a single prose piece as a book; I AM, Devotional Guide on the Names and Attributes of God (2023). I continue to write my prose, as I am inspired. And I am also working on a new novel, Hannah’s Story, which will be a two-book set. And I will be publishing the book, Powerful Effective Prayers of the Bible. My publisher is Badgley Publishing Company.But my highest achievement and title is the Beloved Daughter of the High King of Heaven. I hope to become one of your favorite Christian authors. Thank you, Rhoda Fegan. Read more about this authorRead less about this author