Okay. Brace yourselves. I’m about to reveal something very unusual about myself. Are you ready for this?
Ahem.
I am a near-death experiencer.
Yes, you read that right. I have had not one but three – count ‘em THREE – near-death experiences.
As a social media personality, writer, and YouTuber, I have an agent. Her name is Liz. She called me a couple of years ago with a very unexpected question… “By any chance, have you ever had a near-death experience?”
I stood holding my phone away from my face for quite some time because this wasn’t something I shared with people. How did she know that?
“Actually,” I said, “yes I have.”
“Could you write that book for me?”
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“Near-death experience books are selling like hotcakes!” she declared. “If you’ve had an NDE, that’s the book you need to write!”
At the time, I’d been writing a book proposal for C&T Publishing on how to design your own doll clothes (which they rejected – but which happily led to the classes I now teach online for C&T). So the idea of writing about my near-death experience hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“I can write about it,” I said to Liz, “but honestly, it’s very personal. I’m not sure I’m ready to share that with the world at large.”
Liz proceeded to convince me that writing it as a memoir could be very cathartic. I could find personal growth, healing, and a renewal of my faith if I wrote that book.
It took a while. I had to sit on it. Stew about it. I even went to a counselor to help me process it. But by the end of 2024, I had completed my memoir. At first, I still wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to read such an intimate personal story.
But today, as you read this blog post, I’m on a plane. I’m headed to Chicago, to the IANDS national conference.
IANDS is the International Association of Near Death Studies, and the keynote speaker will be Dr. Raymond Moody, the professor who did the first scientific study of near-death experiencers, noting the elements most NDEs have in common.
What do I plan to get out of this conference? I’m not 100% sure. Maybe I’m still trying to muster up the courage to tell my story, to let people know I have an unusual outlook on life from three different near-death experiences. My first near-death experience happened when I was a child of three or four. The second time I died, I was a teenage girl.
And the third time I died– some of you will remember this – was when I was in the hospital with meningitis.
My brother recently read my memoir’s manuscript, and this is what he had to say about it… “This is a story the world needs to hear.” My brother has been a Church of Christ minister and youth pastor for many years, although he’s switching gears these days and applying for jobs at local colleges and universities. But his passionate faith has never wavered.
And like my agent, he feels strongly that my story needs to be told.
You may have heard me say in some of my end-of-tutorial videos that I have an “Ugly Childhood Fairy.” My brother and I shared that very ugly childhood, so my memoir is, in part, my brother’s story too. And yet, we managed to take our lemons and turn them into lemonade.
So yeah. There’s quite a story to tell.
While I’m gone on this week-long vacation to Chicago – and I’ll be gone again in September to a writers’ conference in Seattle – my blog posts may be a little different than the usual fare. I may go back and re-post older topics, and you may find it takes me a while to approve your comments and/or answer any emails I may have.
I’ve researched some interesting fashion-related videos and podcasts to share with you as well.
Meanwhile, I’ll be learning a lot about how to release my memoir into the world, giving it into God’s hands, to let God do with it what God will.
But please keep commenting on my blog! Keep downloading my patterns! When I do see your comments, it always gives me hope that maybe I do have something to say that people really would like to hear.
And for those of you who are religious or spiritual people, I would love it if you’d say a prayer for me. Somehow I need to muster up the courage to tell my story. And it’s always good to pray for safe travels.
Amen to that!
