A Little Grace Comes to Tizzy Town

One night I could not sleep and as I lay in the bed praying...a childrens book began to dance around in my head. It followed a rhyming pattern and as it unfolded on the landscape of my mind...sleep began to overtake me. Nearing that much desired dream land, I a hoped and prayed that I would be able to remember the whimsical tale and I locked the title in mind, "Tizzy Town". The next day, I went on a search for the perfect journal...I settled on a beautiful hot pink journal. This was going to hold my dancing thoughts and the story that was still fresh in my mind. I opened the crisp new book and wrote the title "Tizzy Town", 2004. At this point...my time was up and we needed to be somewhere else, so I closed my new journal and thought that I would write the story later.

I had thought for a very long time, that I would like to write a story for children, but was not confident that I could pull it off. I found my time was consumed with my family and taking care of other children along the way and at the end of the day...I was tired. Although, along the way...I would occasionally allow my creative self to come out and play.  I enjoyed decorative painting on ornaments, wood, purses and even painted some murals. I also would do prophetic painting during worship services on canvas. If you are not familiar with prophetic painting, it is simply a form of worship, painting what God has placed upon your heart. Most of the time it will be accompanied by scripture, giving you a visual of what that scripture is speaking or what you feel the Lord is speaking at that time. As time went on, the vision for my book was vaguely in my mind. I felt that I had lost most of the story, by not writing it down immediately. In fact...I let years slip past, before I felt the tugging at my heart to write again.

This tugging seemed to be getting stronger. I was not sure that I would be able to recall the book that had first danced across my mind. One evening I was watching a show on the internet called "It's Supernatural", the guest on this broadcast, captured my attention. Her name is Roberta Simpson and she was...at the time seventy five years old. As her story unfolded...hope began to arise in my heart. While driving her car one day...the Lord spoke to her to write a childrens book. Amazingly, she went home that day and began to write. She has now published, "Nana's Bible Stories". A wonderful book presenting bible stories in a fresh light for children. I began to think...if God can use a beautiful seventy five year old lady, to write books to honor Him...why couldn't He use me? I pondered this for a about a week and one night...while I was up alone and the house was all quiet...I said, "Here I am Lord, if you will give me back the story that you gave me years ago, right now...I will write it." I sat in front of my computer and the words began to flow onto the page. I wrote the book in a few hours and the next day I spent time tweaking it. I was utterly amazed that I was able to write a heart touching story in rhyme. My excitement began to grow and then...as time went on...and life took over again, my story, "Grace Comes to Tizzy Town", took a back seat. Although, during this time...I continued to write and even wrote another book in the Tizzy Town series and began a novel for tweens and teens.

Looking back...I can see that fear was holding me back. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of rejection, all of these combined were the force that held me captive and immobilized me from moving forward. I began to think about my book more and it began to stir in my heart again. I prayed for God to help me move forward and He being God, knows just what we need. He sent a precious friend, that I had not seen or spoken to since high school, back into my life and she was a great encouragement to me. I will forever be grateful for this wonderful friendship! I can't thank you enough, Gini W. H. for your encouragement for me...to step out. I even told her that I wanted to buy some books to help me, and she so graciously offered to allow me to borrow the books that she had used, to send off her own story for publication. She was truly sent into my life to get me on track. She is an angel sent from heaven!

Isn't God amazing! When I determined to go along with His plan...He began to send the people and resources I needed to accomplish my goal. I became increasingly aware, that I could not continue to write, paint and be able to do my own illustrations. It would just be too time consuming for me...I prayed about an illustrator and God sent a very talented young man, Tony Whitten to do the illustrations. He read the story and it resonated with him and he agreed to lend his talent to see my book get published. I had a specific look and feel for the illustrations that I was going for and we worked together on the design and sketches. Now, Tony has done an amazing job, bringing the story to life.

This is one of the almost finished illustrations for my book. I love the whimsical feel of it.

I am still on a grand adventure to see my story go to print...and I know that God has a plan. I will continue to move forward and trust the Lord for the rest. I am so thankful to God for giving me...a little grace...with Tizzy Town. I look forward to seeing "Grace Comes to Tizzy Town", in the homes of people, being read to children and encouraging their faith.