Hilda Frances Young: Community connector

Nancy Steele

From Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones

Interview Questions:

1. How did you choose the title?

Choosing a title was a challenge.  I had several titles I thought were “the one” before I remembered that one of the reasons God had me write this book was to tell others how He had helped me overcome the obstacles I faced during the toughest years of my journey.  Once I held onto the purpose God had set out for the book, it was much easier to come up with the title.

As I pondered the “obstacles” I faced, I came up with fear, despair and discouragement.  Then I set my mind to thinking about just how God had helped me and realized what God had directed me to do over the years were actually strategies to overcome those obstacles.

One day I was looking at a picture where flat stones were laid out like a path to cross a stream and the title just came to me.  God had provided me stepping stones to move from where I was to where I needed to be.  It made sense to me that the obstacles were stumbling blocks and the stepping stones would help me navigate around them to complete healing.

• You mentioned that God and Jesus Christ has been with you throughout your life and specifically through your health issues.  Did you question why the answer: quit teaching took so long?

Yes, I did.  After I resigned from teaching, I had a lot of time to read and re-read my journals to really figure out what God had been doing during the four-year period that the book covered.

I realized that the year before I resigned, my friend had given me the message that I was not to work.  God had given me that message a full year prior to my acting on it. After much pondering on why I didn’t follow what He told me, I concluded that I was simply not ready to hear it.  The message went right over my head as I associated not working with not working a summer job, and not with teaching.

By the time the next year rolled around, I was truly at the end of my rope.  I was done trying to find someone or some method to heal me.  God had been telling me to rest in Him, which I took to mean, not striving to find healing, and I was finally in a place to be able to stop striving and start resting.  It was after I gave control over to God that I understood the message to resign.  God is such a gentleman.  He patiently waited for me to be ready to hear what He was saying.

• I noticed that you self published the book. Did you have help with the cover and lay out?

Cover: For the cover I used a company called 99 Designs.  You pay a fee and then put “the job” out on their website.  Using a written description of the book and my likes/dislikes regarding font, etc. designers sent me their concepts for the front and back cover.  There was a period of 10 days where designers could submit their ideas and I could state what I liked and did not like, and they would try again and resubmit.  In the end, I chose the one I liked the most and worked with one designer to fine-tune the cover. 

Exterior Layout: The layout for the front and back cover of the book was predominantly guided by me.  I looked at lots of other books, discovered what I liked and did not like when the designers sent me mock layouts and asked my husband and a few friends for thoughts and ideas.

Interior Layout: The majority of the credit for the layout inside the book goes to my editor Marc Calder.  He is a friend who volunteered to edit my book. 

• Did you have suggestions regarding the set up? I mean the short chapters/ notes at the end of the book/

Yes, I definitely had a lot of guidance in the set up of the book.

Marc Calder was the overall editor and he guided me to write in short chapters and to focus on the main message that God was trying to get across to me during each chapter. It was truly an exercise in discipline as there was so much information that I wanted to keep in the book, but Marc was always ready to focus back on what was most important for the message and the reader.  It was Marc’s idea for the Addendum – a quick reference to each stepping stone for the reader.

The discussion questions were the idea of my other editor Mickeelie Webb.  The thinking was that each of the scripture references and questions would enable the reader to go deeper into each strategy and apply it to themselves – either on their own or with a friend/small group.

• It appears that this book was arranged to be a women’s bible study? Or book club? Did you get support or ideas regarding this part of the book.

When I was writing the book, I never thought of it in terms of a being a book club type of book.  I was just writing my story to share the strategies God had given me with others.  It was Mickeelie who thought the Chapter Discussion Questions would help the reader and provide more value as a resource for anyone who wanted to delve deeper into the stepping stones in a group setting.

8.       Did you get guidance for the book format?

The formatting of the book was predominantly done by my editor Mickeelie Webb.  I provided some preferences like the bolding of the small headings within each chapter but she determined the line spacing, the margins, etc.