It’s Happening

What I’ve wanted to do since I was a young girl, what others have expected of me since I graduated from high school, what my family and friends have encouraged with much hope to happen is finally becoming reality.

I am a published author.

Little as I am, those words fill me with an enormous sense of wonder, relief, gratitude, and, yes, giggling delight.

I’m a published author!

The book that I promised as my New Year’s resolution of 2018 has been written, edited, rewritten, edited some more, pitched, and ultimately accepted by a bona fide publisher. Sophia Institute Press is publishing my book, It’s Good to Be Here, which is expected to be released by December 14, 2019. That’s one month away! In fact, it’s already available for preorder! (See bottom of this post.) My book — my book — is no longer a dream or a plan, but a flesh and blood reality! Make that a paper and ink reality. At least, very soon.

Those of you who have followed my blog and have read some of my reflections know that my life is very little. I am physically disabled by a genetic, progressive disease and severely dependent upon other people for everyday survival. My amazing parents have sacrificed much in their lives in order to take care of me and are still doing so, into their seventies. The thing about my book, for which I think I am the most grateful, is that my parents now have something solid to show for their self-giving love: a published book written by the daughter who has needed so much of their time and attention. Not that they needed any proof that they were doing the right thing or any kind of reward for the selfless care they give, but I’m glad to be able to give a little something, a little 180ish-page love letter to life, to my mom and dad.

The timing of this announcement coincides with a recent visit to the hospital by my father. During a very strange and acute lapse in short-term memory, my sister wisely decided to bring my dad to the ER. Given his septuple coronary artery bypass surgery four years ago (this month) and his family history, the doctors decided to be extra cautious. His confusion cleared up fairly quickly and his short-term memory returned, but they kept him for two nights of observation and many tests, during which time my mother dug deep to take care of me, despite her own weakness and pain. Thankfully, all of the tests revealed nothing abnormal at all and my dad came back healthfully to us. He was probably overtired and under-hydrated and, yes, 72. On his Facebook status, my dad called it ICF — idiopathic cerebral flatulence. Get it? No doubt the doctors missed one thing abnormal about dear old dad: his sense of humor!

Our sense of humor and gratitude has seen my family and I through many struggles, and our faith is always there for us when things don’t go the way that we want them to and when they do.

Caring for a severely disabled daughter is hard, and my parents didn’t always know that I would proclaim, “It’s good to be here.” When my parents were given my diagnosis and prognosis, in fact, they wondered and feared if I would someday wish that I had never been born. But I’m so glad and grateful to be alive that … well, I wrote a book about it.

Keeping true to the original name of this blog, Divine Incarnate, my book is full of the amazing truth realized through God’s choice to take on the limitations of flesh, to become little like us. The rather long subtitle of the book is A Disabled Woman’s Reflections on God in the Flesh and the Sacred Wonder of Being Human. I’m excited and, yes, a little nervous for my family and friends, including you, my dear reader, to read my book. Right now, however, I’m just over the moon and under divine awe that I can write about my book.

My book!

St. Teresa of Calcutta encouraged everyone to do small things with great love. I have written this small book with great love, drawing upon my best moments, the high and the low, and my deepest convictions. I share intimate stories from my own little life while exploring the divine life of one particular human being: Christ Jesus. For we can only know what it means to be fully human, and we can only experience what it is to be fully alive, in the light of Christ and the divinely human life that He lived here. So, reflect with me, my dear reader, and explore the wonders, fears, struggles, and delights of life here and now, of divine love that lives forever, through It’s Good to Be Here.

You can preorder my book from the publisher, Sophia Institute Press: https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/its-good-to-be-here

(Many wonderful books to be found on this site! I have my eye on Ask Peter Kreeft and Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters.)

Or from Amazon.com: click here It’s Good to Be Here

For all of the support and encouragement that you’ve given to me, dear readers, including bugging me when I asked you to, I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.

© 2019 Christina Chase