Stephanie Shott

Someone recently asked me how and why I began writing. It wasn't something I had ever thought about before. When I was a child I loved to write. It often replaced my fumbling efforts at making sense of my own thoughts. Words always seemed to sound better after the ink dried. Those who know me may be surpised to learn that I wasn't always a talker. :-)

My teenage years kept me way too busy to even think about writing and so I had to master the illusive art of communication. Or at least attempt to do so. I have never really been a reader either. It was too hard for me to sit still long enough to finish a book. I wasn't someone who loved to read...not until I received Christ. That was when everything changed.

Reading became essential. I began to study God's Word. I then began speaking and teaching, which proved to be something I must do because it is who I am. As Eric Liddell once said, "when I run I feel His pleasure." When I speak and teach, I feel His pleasure!

Writing, however, reemerged somewhere between God’s call on my life to teach His Word and His call for us to become missionaries. In my attempt to find clarity in an obscure place in my life, the words found their way onto the pages of my first book. It wasn't planned. I actually thought it was another Bible study or speaking topic. Possibly a workbook for those I would teach. But God opened doors I never thought possible and my first book was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to and is coming out next year. To God be the glory!

Unlike most writers, I'm not really a reader, I'm a studier. Writing has somehow inched its way to the surface of my life and has become something I must do. I'm not sure that it has become who I am, like speaking and teaching are, but I'm finding that I must write.

I have no idea where this new adventure in writing will lead, I only know that knowing Jesus and making Him known are the desires of my heart and I am willing to walk down any path my Savior places me on.