The Story of the Inspiration Book
May 29, 1993

On Friday, January 30, 1987, while I was waiting for the bus after school, I started writing in a blank notebook the poem "Comes the Dawn" by Veronica A. Shoffstall as printed in Ann Landers' advice column. This notebook was to help me through what I still consider to be the most profound change of my life - even more significant than going off to college or marrying. I entitled the book Inspiration and included a table of contents for easy reference.

Ironically, two days later tragedy struck when a classmate died in a car crash. My book helped me and assisted me in helping others cope with the loss.

On my eighteenth birthday (August 28, 1987; you do the math), the day I consider to be the most perfect day in my life, I purchased a blank hardcover book from Shakti, my favorite State Street bookstore, and began transferring the materials from "softcover" to "hardcover" just after I went off to college. I wasn't to write in the book again for nearly five years, but I did refer to it often throughout college, and I even loaned it to someone: my now husband.

In the summer of 1992, I was under great duress. My husband and I moved to Milwaukee where I had a difficult time finding a decent job. The one job I did find for a while was working for a very verbally abusive man in a print shop. I started writing in Inspiration again because I needed the inner strength and support it offered me back in early 1987.

Since that time, I have shared some of the writings with others whom I see have a need for that same kind of moral support. Sometimes I do this anonymously. Inspiration contains writings that vary from popular songs and poems in our culture and history to songs written by a close friend, Casey Day, to my own personal poetry that I've written throughout the years. This book also reaffirms my belief in God as is signified by the passage written on the opening leaf: