Faith Reaper, From southern USA, 421 Fans, 85 Hubs, Joined 16 months ago
|
|
Jackie Lynnley Interviews Faith Reaper
Insights from a poet, faithful Christian, loving family woman, and breast cancer survivor
Tell us Faith, how did you get into writing on HubPages?
Well, a local magazine in the county in which I live, "Peach Living," had published an article about another Hubber here on HubPages. Our county is known far and wide for its juicy peaches. The article was so very interesting to me. It highlighted that Hubbers's amazing photography and writing. That Hubber and I still have to meet for coffee one morning, being we do live in the same county.
Anyway, after reading the local magazine, I decided to investigate HubPages further. I must say, I was truly impressed that HubPages is totally free and one can write about whatever topic one so chooses (within reason).
I had already been working on a novel for many, many years, and I am still working on it. Since it has been so many years since I initially started to write my novel, I have had much life experience, and now my novel is going in another direction. However, I had also written several poems and thought I would just publish those poems here on HubPages.
In my day job I am a paralegal in a government office which attempts to keep public officials and public employees ethical . . . an arduous task to say the least!
Of course, being new to the community back in March of 2012, those poems did not receive much attention. However, after figuring out how things work here in HP Town, all of that began to change, much to my delight. I started to highlight those first poems that did not receive much attention when the profile changes were made, and now those poems have received much more attention. This makes me happy, since the very first poems I published meant the most to me.
What is your favorite thing about writing?
Well, I love to write about my true life experiences and how God worked through those experiences. I call those writings my, "Boasting in the Lord" stories, whether they come out in poetry form or otherwise.
I really do not consider myself to be a true poet.
What inspires you to write and gets your juices flowing?
What really gets my juices flowing is when God shows up mightily in my life or in the lives of my family/friends and does amazing things, to which I must respond through my writings to glorify Him. I try really hard to not glorify myself in any manner, but truly attempt to glorify Him through my writings to the best of my abilities. I know that does not always happen, but I do try.
My main goal in writing is simply to write about love and truly loving others in this world. I really try my best to show grace to all, as He has shown me much grace throughout my lifetime, when I did not deserve any of it.
I am so thankful that He, my Lord God, is not finished with me yet and that His mercies are new each and every morning.
You say you write non-fiction. Is there a special reason for that?
Yes, I do write non-fiction for the most part. As you may have surmised from reading my writings, I am a Christian. My goal is to show the love I now have in my heart to others through my personal and intimate relationship with my Lord God. I would never want to come across as too preachy or hitting someone over the head with my Bible. However, when I initially started to write, I prayed about it and promised the Lord God that I would attempt to glorify Him through my writings by writing about what He has done in my life. Every now and then I will throw in something a little different, such as humor. Besides, God truly does have a sense of humor, as I have come to find out in my own life experiences, which helps to keep me humble.
In your HubPages bio, Faith, you said you are a cancer survivor. Would you like to touch on that?
Oh sure, that is truly one of my "Boasting in the Lord" stories, no doubt, as I know in my heart, He healed me of breast cancer. My granddaughters at the time had been living with us. I must have just been so caught up with helping out with them, since they were so very young at the time when they came to live with us for 18 months (ages 3 months and 2 and 1/2 years of age), I did not even realize I had missed my annual mammogram.
Well, I did miss my annual appointment, and once I realized I missed a whole year, I immediately made an appointment. I was diagnosed with DCIS breast cancer in 2011.
Since I have already written about my experience in a Hub, I will just touch on how the Lord's peace rained down on me once I turned to look at the film of my mammogram up on the wall. I just knew I had cancer from the jagged shape and huge white cluster of calcifications on my left breast. Immediately, before any doctor or anyone told me that I had breast cancer, I just knew it was and I prayed and asked Him to heal me if it was His will to do so. And that was when His peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding, just rained down on me. I had no fear whatsoever. It is something one must experience, as no words can even describe such peace: His peace!
Right then, I promised the Lord God that I would glorify Him through my whole experience, whether it was His will to heal me or that I died a short while later.
The very next week, I had a biopsy, and I remember the doctor commenting that it was so strange that she was having a hard time finding the cluster, and it seemed to have shrunk to a much smaller size within just that one week. I just smiled and praised Him.
Then the very next week, after the biopsy, I was scheduled to have those intense eight minute photos of each breast, times three, called BSGI images. These are more intense images that will show anything and everything there is, without a doubt. They first inject you with radioactive dye so that whatever needs to show up does. Afterwards, the doctor came into the room where I was and she had this baffled look on her face. She asked me to come into another room to do an ultrasound. I thought, how strange, since the BSGI images were a lot more reliable than an ultrasound. So, the doctor commenced the ultrasound on my left breast with much intensity on her face and in her movements of the device all over my breast. She just kept searching and searching with that baffled look on her face once again.
Finally, after a long while, it was as if she just gave up her search and told me that maybe there was no disease, but that she would send all of the tests, etc. over to the surgeon. I smiled again because I knew she was not able to find one thing and that the Lord God had healed me of this disease. It was there, no doubt, and then it was no longer, praise Him!
Well, I will not go on and on, since you can read that true life experience in my Hub on breast cancer awareness. So great, so great is His faithfulness!
You often write about different family members in your Hubs. Family must mean a great deal to you?
Oh, yes, family means the world to me. When I do write about a specific family member in a Hub, it is usually due to some wonderful (once again) and miraculous thing that the Lord God has done in that particular family member's life. However, when it comes to my grandchildren, many times I will just write about them for fun. They bring me so much joy and I could not imagine my life without them in it. I am so blessed beyond measure and I praise Him for each one.
Is there anything about yourself that may surprise us to know and that you would like to share with us?
Hmm, well, I believe I have been pretty much an open book in my writings (and even, at times, maybe a bit over-exposed)! LOL
Well, I will admit something that may or may not be shocking to some. When my son, at the very young age of 19, made me a grandmother . . . well, initially, I truly was not overjoyed about such news. I guess that was the farthest thing in my mind, at that time. I have a daughter who is five years older than my son, and she is not married yet, so no children from her yet. I believe I was just so concerned about how he was going to care for his children at such a young age and with his income. And then two years later, here comes my other granddaughter, and just last October, my first grandson was born, all by my son.
However, all my fears dissipated once I saw that precious first little face come into this world, and how God provided and still provides for all. Now, of course, I just could not even imagine this life without all of my precious little gifts from heaven above. They truly bring me such joy in this life and I praise my God each day for them all!
One other matter, which a lot of my close Hubber friends already know (and those who follow me on Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+). . . my real name. I chose not to use my real name here, in an attempt to keep me humble and an attempt to keep my focus on glorifying my Lord God. On my profile page, I do explain how I came up with my Hubber name of Faith Reaper: my given name actually means "reaper" or "harvester" and then I just threw in the "Faith" part since I am growing in my faith each day.
Thank you so much, Jackie, for thinking of me. It has been a pleasure. God bless you. In His Love Always, Theresa Davis aka Faith Reaper (Surprise!)
|
