The Son in My Eyes

Did you ever play the sing-along-song-game, “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?”

Do you remember the question and reply? “Who me? Couldn’t be!”
That’s how I sometimes feel I should answer when I am asked, “Are you a children’s author?”

I have to be honest and admit I never set out to be a children’s author, but God had different plans. I am living proof that God can use anybody and make them what they never dreamed they could be.

When I was around eight years old, I visited my paternal grandmother. I told her about a missionary story I heard at Sunday school. Grandma disappeared into her utility room and came back with a few sheets of typing paper stapled together and said, “Go write your own missionary story.”

A title flashed in my head and I scribbled it down on the front page—Mae Sue’s God. I wrote about an oriental woman, who worshipped idols and then heard of God’s love for her. Soon she came into a personal relationship with Jesus and destroyed all of her false gods. I even found a box of crayons and illustrated my tiny booklet.

Little did my grandmother know when she read every page and affirmed my efforts, she was helping mold me and whet my writing appetite.

Forty-four years later, I was hired to write a biography about a Vietnamese Buddhist woman who had a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ. (Mai Spencer’s book The Son in My Eyes was released in June.) Although Mai’s book was not for children, the proceeds from book sales go to some poor children in Vietnam.

When people ask me how they can write for the Lord. I encourage them to give their “writing” lunch to Jesus and watch it multiply. He has bigger dreams for us than we could ever dream for ourselves.