My name is Lexie I'm 16 years old and in 10th grade. My mom listens to your books all the time while I'm in the car and I usually only get pieces of your stories, or enough to know the story line, but once she was finished I would never go back to the book and listen to it myself. But this time was different, I was in the car when my mom started Shades of Blue and somehow this book struck a chord in my heart.
Every day this week my mom would listen to it, but I would never be in the car long enough to fully understand what was going on. I felt uneasy about this; I felt something nudging me to read this book because I knew that this book was about abortion. I have never really thought about abortion until this week when I was assigned an assignment in religion class to talk about this. To be honest, I was wavering to being toward abortion, even though I am a Christian and I knew that my parents were firm believers that abortion is wrong. I think I thought this way was because almost everyone in my grade is sexually active, except me and a handful of people, and just imagining them being pregnant, my friends the people who I grew up with, made me uneasy, so I thought the answer was obvious and simple, abortion, that somehow it would make it all go away, make life the way it was before. I never thought about the emotional effect abortion had on someone, this book has really taught me to be pure, and I really want to thank you for that. I’m in love with reading and I know that I always wanted my first time to be special, with someone I absolutely love, and this book has taught me to wait for that certain person because I know that God has picked that man out just for me already.
Anyways, I really wanted to say thanks, for teaching me that every life is important no matter what age they are, and I can never thank you enough for filling me with knowledge that I never knew of. This book changed my life, maybe not drastically, but enough to make me never forget your words and these characters that you have so carefully made. I can’t remember a time where I have cried so hard over a book because I just kept thinking, someone in the world is going through this pain and suffering and hate for themselves and thinking God will never forgive him, but God is good, he forgives us no matter what we have done.
If you are reading this I want you to pray for me, to give me strength not to give in to drugs and alcohol because I’ve been slipping and I am paying for my decisions but yet, I keep doing it, I’m not strong enough to say no. So please, please pray for me. And pray please pray that I remain pure for my future husband and God. And thank you for changing my views on abortion, making me realize it is wrong to kill anyone of any age. Thank you for making me have a stronger faith in God, I really needed this. To be honest I think God intended me to be with my mom the day that she started this, intended me to want to listen to the book by myself and grow a connection to the characters, I stayed up all night listening to them, and lost a lot of sleep thanks to you [= but it was definitely worth it.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, you will never understand the impact you had on my life just because this one book. And if you can, please respond to this because I want to know that someone is listening to me, but if you don't its okay I know God is.
With love, Lexie C.
