Imagine you are on an airplane flying from Minneapolis, MN on a cold blustery night in late November.  You look outside but see nothing but snow and sleet accumulating on the window.  Suddenly, a drop in altitude propels you forward into the seat in front of you, the warning lights and buzzers pierce the silence, gasps and screams slash the darkness.  Thoughts begin to flash in your mind, of your loved ones, of things you haven’t got around to doing or saying.  You begin to wonder how you will be remembered if the plane crashes and regrets begin to tug at your heart. 

The above account happened to me.  My wife was waiting at the airport for my return from a  week long business trip.  She was 7 months pregnant with our first child.  The plane made three futile attempts to land at the Sioux Falls, SD airport when the pilot finally came on the overhead speaker and announced that the fuel situation was too low to continue to circle to wait for the weather to clear for another landing attempt and we had to head to an alternate airport.  Luckily, after what seemed to be a flight that lasted a lifetime we made a successful landing at another airport.    

Although I had been in several other “close calls” over the years while flying for business, the thought of upcoming fatherhood and my responsibility to my unborn child weighted heavily on my heart and mind.  I began to think of the many people in my life that have died unexpectedly or of grandparents who died while I was too young to truly learn from them.   How does anyone find peace in knowing that their life’s story has been told, lessons passed on, and that their legacy will be remembered?

As I thought of my own life, my grandfathers died before I got to know them.  I have very little information on their life, dreams, achievements, or what they learned during their lifetime.   Their life seemed to fade away into the background on an old picture on the wall.  How I wished that I could have been able to sit down with a cup of coffee and ask them the best advice for their great-granddaughter.

Initially, my first attempt at finding a solution to this dilemma was to write a serious of letters and notes on random topics of life.  After a while, however, these notes became an unorganized mess – a pile of papers with no start or finish.  I had to find some way that the information could be organized and useful.  Over the next 10 years, I research the best advice from the best teachers in history and put together a book that provides guidance on all important areas of life.  But it doesn’t stop there; the book is also a formatted journal for each person to record his or her own personal thoughts, experiences, and life events.     

Having never written a book I thought the process would be easy.  Write a good book on a topic that would be interesting, on a topic that fit a need or interest of readers, and send it to the publisher and they would print it.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Most publishers only want your story if you’re A) famous B) killed someone C) famous and killed someone or D) an established writer with an established sales record.

After sending out over 100 cold call “letters” without any offers, I decided to self-publish the book, The Discovery Journal: A formatted Journal to Live and Record Life, through IUniverse.  However, self-publishing is not cheap nor are the copies cheap to purchase.   My wife and I believed in the book so we took out a second mortgage to pay the costs.  We decided that God had a purpose for the book and it needed to be published.  Since it has been published, the book has been an inspiration for a young mother who has battled and won a fight with breast cancer.  It also was of great inspiration to an Iraq War veteran whose wife purchased the book for him to take to Iraq so he could keep his mind on the positive aspects of life. 

The book may never be a national best seller, nor even make a profit, but knowing that it has touched lives, gave hope to the sick, and will become a treasured keepsakes for many families is all the compensation that anyone could ask.  Don’t let your life fade into the background of a family album or a picture on the wall, take the time to record your story, your achievements, and your teachings.    Whether you find a journal, a video tape, cassette recording, or a book like the one I wrote to be your method of capturing your story.  Tell it, share it, and allow it to live for all others to know you and gain from your life’s experience. 

Just think of this, “What was the difference between Anne Frank and the millions of other’s who lived in her time?”  Anne kept an account of her life, others did not.  Is your story the next Anne Frank’s Diary?   

To learn more about the author and the book, The Discovery Journal, check out the website here.

Email: mwilliams@alliancecom.net

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