I was 45 years old, feeling both excited and a little nervous, when I stepped onto the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins as a non-traditional-age student with a determined goal of earning a journalism degree. The courses opened an exciting world of knowledge to a stagnant but hungry mind. First-semester grades were posted in the administration building. As student activity swirled around this grateful grandmother, I stood teary-eyed, staring at the 4.0 GPA I’d earned. I had done it. And I was just getting started.

But life has a way of shifting plans. At the end of my second year, our three-year-old granddaughter, Jessica, lost her battle with leukemia. That changed everything for me.

It was then that my husband, Larry, and I packed up and headed to southern California to fulfill my dream of living at the water. We landed in Solana Beach, the perfect place to realize the dream come true. With nothing but faith, we began our own electrical business.

Here, I eventually continued my Colorado involvement in Stonecroft, an international, nondenominational, nonprofit ministry whose goal is to connect women with God, each other, and their communities “where she is, as she is.”  I resumed speaking for the ministry and became a devotional writer for their international publication, Progress magazine. That experience inspired me to compile the devotionals, which, over a period of years, developed into the daily devotional Views From the Water’s Edge. The book’s success motivated me to write another daily devotional, Pebbles of Prayer and Ponderings, and then another, Infinite Grains of Sand.

I’ve always had a heart for women. It is a joy for me to speak at women’s groups, offering hope and inspiration to those who, like me, have experienced grief, divorce, serious illness, and the wrenching upheaval of families dealing with alcoholism and addiction. I long to connect with women and to tell of the powerful way God can intervene and bring hope to what can seem hopeless.

My husband, Larry, and I are best friends. Now retired, we revel in the warm southern California sunshine, walks on the beach, and time to travel. We cherish time with our blended family of five children, thirteen grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.