Late in 1990, I began writing a book about my cancer experience five years before. My mother had died a few months earlier, and I had sought solace in my writing. I joined a mentored writing group, and my first draft poured out. I’d often dreamed of writing for magazines, but I had been encouraged by the group to write my first full-length book. The process of writing preoccupied my mind and kept me from succumbing to my grief.

The draft, a raw, naive, poorly-constructed biography, left a lot to be desired by the publishing community. However, as the rejections began coming in—(60 all told)—the majority of their comments did not focus on my amateurish writing; rather, they most often rejected the account by saying it did not align with the beliefs of the publisher. Being a bible-reading, evangelical Christian at the time, I didn’t understand how it might not be credible to "hear messages from God," see visions, or be guided by signs and wonders. This led me to reevaluate my beliefs.

Here I was, up against a real test of my faith. Did I believe in the visions I saw? Or were they a farce? Were my intentions honorable? Or cursed? Through a series of self-devised experiments, I sought proof of my faith and beliefs and came to believe they were righteous and true—at least for me, despite what some others might believe.

Still deeply immersed in prayer, many family members and friends would ask me to pray for them and their life situations. However, this too, soon became a question for me. I’d gleaned a greater understanding of how our trials shape us for the better, and I started to feel as if I might be playing God when I prayed. So for a time, I stopped praying and stopped asking God to "fix" everything.

I suffered from severe depression and perhaps a lingering grief over the loss of my mother. (My father had died years before.) It all seemed to flood my emotions. For a period of forty-five days, I could not write anything. A prolific journal and letter writer, it suddenly felt foreign and painful to pick up a pen. All I could do was sit in a chair and do as little as possible.

I remember asking God to let me die. . . but. . .