The Book on the Inside of You

It’s amazing but true.

Many people who spend time reading books or watching programs about the lives of others actually have more interesting lives themselves.

We’ve all run into people who have lived through great adventures.

It can be an immigrant who entered a new country in some novel or dangerous way, a soldier who barely survived a ferocious battle, a mother who almost died in childbirth – twice, a father who raised several children after his wife’s departure.

How about the lessons of living with a disability, or living with someone who has a disability?

Even if you find your own life uninspiring, how about those of your ancestors, like your pioneer great-grandparents – or even your grandparents or parents? What about the history of the business your family founded?

I’ve often thought that some day I might write something humorous about my dog, whose greatest joy as pup was chewing up my socks, or maybe a series of children’s books, or a novel based on some of my own experiences.

Obviously, such ideas only get you started, but if you work on regularly fleshing them out you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can put muscle on the bones.

Evangelist Myles Munroe, founder of Bahamas Faith International Ministries in Nassau, Bahamas, is a prolific book writer, dealing often with the subjects of leadership and purpose. Somewhere in one of his books he remarked about a graveyard and the hundreds of people who had died without birthing the dream within them.

There are many people who have not given birth to the books within them.

The shame in all this is that they often delight in debased creations from Hollywood, but can’t see their own true-to-life experiences as anything out of the ordinary.

Someone once said within every person is at least one great book – their own life story.

One of the most involving books I have had the pleasure of publishing was by a woman whose husband and five-year-old son were run over by a hit-and-run drunken driver. Dad and son were bicycling home from a neighborhood convenience store when they were hit from behind.

Though the impact threw the dad over the car, he was not too seriously injured. But the child was crushed under one of the wheels. Paramedics prepared to put his corpse into a body bag, but then discovered a pulse.

God had miraculously intervened, and little Ryan Eubank was offered a reprieve from death. Author Donna Eubank chronicles her (and her husband Roger’s) long, arduous struggle to keep the flicker of their son’s life from being extinguished, first by Satan and then by a medical establishment that had little faith in his survival. Along the way, they discovered how God had miraculously put people in place to aid in their son’s recovery.

For the Love of Ryan: Why Heaven Had to Wait (Vision Publishing, $13.99, 0965178390) is one of the most inspirational books I’ve ever encountered. Somewhere along the line I will publish the review, but even today I cannot read the book without getting emotional. (You can order it on Amazon.com, or any of the online booksellers.)

God had to keep nudging Donna to write it, but she wasn’t able to handle the task until years after the accident. Still, the book didn’t happen until the Eubanks received a prophecy from their pastor.

The point is this: There is something inside you worthy of being written about.

You may have to dig down deep to bring it out, but it will be well worth the effort.

Even if you never find anyone to publish what you discover, just think of how much you’ll learn about yourself along the way.

Then, once you’ve learn the knack of self-discovery, it’ll be time to start another one.

Stanley O. Williford