And the Sun Came Up

Mary Grace Johnson

My Friend Writes Podcast: Season 1 ~ Episode 2
And the Sun Came Up: A True Story of Grief and Hope

Before I wrote my children’s book, And the Sun Came Up: A True Story of Grief and Hope, I was a librarian and English teacher who promoted reading and writing to kids in middle and high school. However, I didn't think of myself as a writer during that time, because I didn't have the confidence or passion to do it. I had taken a creative writing course in college and felt like I had failed miserably at being “creative.”
Writing was no longer an option in my mind. I knew I could write well, but lacked the confidence I needed to share with an audience. 

Shortly before I retired from teaching, a tragic event in my daughter’s life became the catalyst for me to rethink what God might be calling me to do. My daughter’s sister-in-law was killed in a car accident, leaving her husband and six kids behind. Talking about events in my own life was much easier to write about, since I didn’t feel I had to be creative, even if they were painful, and I felt God moving me to do something since I had been through death as a child. I thought maybe I could write a children’s book that might help ease the pain for children of loss. That began my journey to write this book.

As I wrote, I found that the process was not quite what I had expected. I wrote a much longer story than most picture books could hold. My editor had to cut parts of it, but that didn’t affect the message – they were mostly just the excess details that I had added when picturing it.

The part of this story that was hardest to tell was the details about the day Daddy died, and we learned of his death. I am now 63 years old and have been working through that grief for a long time. There are many more stories from my life that will also be hard to share, but I hope to do so to help others who might be going through trials and need Jesus to heal their hearts.

What I didn't expect when writing this particular story was that the act of putting it on paper and into the world would reveal that I honestly hadn't dealt with my grief at losing my daddy for many years, and it also explained a lot about the depression, anxiety, and need to control events (and sometimes people) in my life. 

I feel that I am different now, but still growing, because I have learned that my story of loss and grief could have an impact on children of loss as well as adults. It is my greatest hope that many with similar stories will come to know the Savior through the retelling of my personal experience and how I came to Christ early in life. I am also learning to surrender more to God. Throughout my life, I felt I needed control over my circumstances, and when that didn’t work, I ended up in a puddle of mush, a mess. Little by little, I am learning to surrender control of everything in my life to Jesus, even when it's the hardest of circumstances.  

Writing this book revealed that God was inviting me to finally face my unhealed childhood grief and use my story to bring hope and healing to others.

Listen to Episode Two: And the Sun Came Up: A Story of Childhood Grief, Faith, and Healing

Connect with Mary Grace:

Website- marygracejohnsonauthor.com
Facebook- MaryGJohnson
Instagram- MGJSD
Amazon- And the Sun Came Up