One Day Soaring with the Angels the Next Caught in Life’s Downdraft

Over every mountain, there is a pass, although it may not be seen from the valley.

It is my great pleasure to welcome a keen philosopher, emissary of wisdom, and creator and host of “Writers for Life”, a wonderful venue for writers and readers alike, Denise George. Thank you, Denise for joining us in conversation and sharing your powerful story of perseverance and triumph with us.

Denise: Would it be okay if I told you a story?

James: We eagerly await your memoir, my friend.

Denise: I came into this world with an Elijah-like “fire in my bones” to write and get published. The fire burned white hot, I lived to write, and for half a century, I spent most of my waking hours at my desk, enthusiastically churning out books and articles.

After writing 31 books and more than 1,500 articles, teaching graduate level writing classes, and travelling throughout the world to speak, though, I crashed. My energy and my health took a nosedive. I had hit some huge unexpected life changing, energy draining, nerve wracking, and frustrating road blocks.

For the next two and a half years, I stopped writing.

Elijah’s fire still burned in my bones, but I was physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted, and so stressed out I couldn’t sleep. I had no energy to think, create, or write. I spent lots of time in doctors’ offices, took prescription after prescription of strong antibiotics for a painful bronchitis that wouldn’t heal. I endured stabbing arthritic pain in my lower back.

Every day proved an impossible drudgery.

I drowned myself in black coffee trying to clear the brain fog, unable to put two sensible thoughts together. I stayed in bed far too much, not able to sleep but too exhausted to crawl out and meet the new day.

I struggled to breathe, the bronchitis becoming chronic, and I endured all the unsettling side effects of multiple antibiotics. I also began to lose my beloved community, having no desire to get together with much loved family or friends, too bone tired to make simple conversation by phone. I began to skip church and Bible studies, my spiritual energy waning, nearly depleted.

“I’m finished,” I told my daughter-in-law, Rebecca. “I can’t write anymore. Don’t have the stamina nor energy, can’t sleep, my body hurts, and I’m too stressed to even think.”

When my book agent offered me some super writing opportunities with fantastic, big name publishers, I cried when I had to turn them down. “Just can’t do it anymore,” I told him. “I’m spent.”

When an organization in Europe invited me to Italy to accept a prestigious book award, I declined. I felt too tired to fly, to travel, to pack, or to dress up in formal attire.

I had lost my purpose in life, my God-called vocation to write. I felt like a bird that had broken her wing and lost her song.

I had originally planned to write until the end of my life and often joked with my writer friends, “When I’m 110, and ready to depart this life, please make sure I’ve pressed my computer’s ‘send’ button, so the editor will receive my article before the deadline!”

I wanted to be like my late writer friend Fronia Barnard. At age 100, Fronia still led the aerobic classes in her assisted living home and was still winning national poetry contests. At age 104, she signed a new book contract. Before her 106thbirthday, she had signed two more new book contracts.

A writer for life, Fronia was my role model. I knew if I followed in Fronia’s footsteps, I still had 40 years left to write. But, at age 66, I had been knocked off my feet by sudden, surprising life changes. I felt finished, and very disappointed to have to give up an exciting, prolific writing career. I mourned the untimely death of my lost dreams.

Fortunately, however, that’s not the end of my story.

During the month of my 68th birthday, I intentionally turned a corner in my life. What changed?

I did.

Rebecca introduced me to a simple new lifestyle, taught me how to do it, and it worked.

What did I do? First, I kicked all the toxic chemicals out of my daily life. I committed myself to healthy living, no longer wanting to feel so tired, rundown, and lifeless. I wanted to stay alive, and to write, for as long as I lived.

One by one, I exchanged dangerous products with healthy, plant-based ones, and the results were almost instant.

When I swapped out harsh cleaning chemicals in my office, and stopped washing my clothes and dishes in detergents laden with toxins, I stopped sneezing immediately and my eyes no longer burned.

As I ditched the toxic personal products, my brain fog lifted and I felt my energy return.

I began diffusing therapeutic grade essential oils to relax, to sleep, to feel energized, and to wake up my brain. I researched the value of a healthy eating plan and learned that my body needed necessary supplements to maintain good health.

Each month I made small changes, and by the end of the year, at age 69, I had become a new person!

Now, I feel better than I’ve ever felt, have an abundance of energy, and I no longer feel so stressed out all the time. I’m sleeping all night every night, swimming three times a week, and dropping lots of unwanted pounds. My brain fog has cleared, and a glow has returned to my sullen cheeks.

I’m getting healthy and staying healthy.

I’m also writing again, greatly inspired by creative new ideas, investigating new writing genres and opportunities, and ready to start teaching, speaking, and travelling again. I’ve gained a new excitement about life and can sit for hours at my computer, my back no longer aching.

The decision I made has completely changed my life, my body, my brain, my spirit, and my writing. And, I’m happy to say my inner fire has been rekindled, and that Elijah “fire in my bones” is now blazing brighter than ever!

During my long writing lifetime, I have personally mentored, taught, helped, and befriended more than 2,000 writers. I’ve written numerous requested endorsements for their newly published books and have an entire bookcase filled with their autographed collected works.

But some of my most promising writer friends have lost their fire, the final flame of their work flickering and threatening to go out.

Writers, we can’t let that inner fire die.

If God has called you to be a writer for Him, you mustn’t let your inner flame be extinguished. Your voice is needed in today’s society for people are hurting, confused, and feeling hopeless. You have the message and the writing skills to address them, challenge them, and lift them back to their feet, giving them some hope for the future.

But maybe you, like I once did, have lost your fire, and now feel depleted, discouraged. I pray you won’t let the unexpected hardships of life snuff out your writing fire. For they can, and will do so quickly.

Maybe you, too, are passionate about writing, about sharing your words with a waiting, hope-starved world. Maybe you, too, yearn to reestablish good health and energy—to be rebooted—your body, mind, emotions, and spirit renewed, restored.

Maybe you, too, want to stay alive as long as you live, enjoy life, family, and friends, and serve your God-called purpose to write well and publish prolifically.

If so, you have come to the right place.

In this Facebook group, Writers for Life, you can expect to be informed daily about new writing and publishing opportunities, taught how to write better and more prolifically, shown some of my personal secrets about how to make your words “sing,” challenged by current writing contests you can enter, encouraged to tackle writing assignments you thought you couldn’t do, and, at the same time, taught the simple steps for revitalizing your body, mind, soul, and spirit to live your extraordinary, God-given purpose.

Let’s journey together and seek to become the writers for life that God has called us to be. As a newly rejuvenated fellow scribe myself, my gift to you is to help you get there. It worked for me, and it can certainly work for you, too!

Please share your life's journey with us you never know when something you experienced might help someone else. Simply fill in your member details below. We look forward to your participation in our conversation in The Reading Room where you're always among friends.