Q&A - The Shoe Box

Tell us about your God box and how it inspired you to write this story.

Before I started writing Redeeming Love, when I was still rather new at loving God with my whole heart, I had been a secretary at one point, and regularly used an inbox and outbox. I got the idea to start using what I called a God Box—an inbox for God. I would write out prayers and put the papers into the God Box. This practice helped me to let go of the issues, to put them into God's hands by physically putting them into the box. Every few months I would read the papers and marvel at how God had answered the prayers, often in unexpected ways.

I also put into the God Box things like the Angel Tree Project ornaments, or the ornaments from the Salvation Army tree. I'd never know those children or what happened to them, but putting the ornaments into the box was a way to give them to the Lord and trusting them to his care.

When I was asked to write a short story for the Angel Tree Foundation, I wasn't sure I could do it. I had never written a children's story before. One afternoon the story came to me, based on the practice of the God Box. I wrote The Shoe Box in one afternoon—it just flowed out, and I knew exactly what I needed to say. That's the only time a story came so easily!

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