It all started with a word that became a seed…
Summer 1985. Last day of primary school. Yeri village, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Our teacher, Mrs Nitsa, lines us up and one by one takes our hands in hers, offering a few words of encouragement as we prepare to step into secondary school and a wider world.
When it is my turn, she squats elegantly in her high heels and pencil skirt. Her perfume stirs memories of my mother, already gone. Her blue eyes hold mine as if she is about to entrust me with a secret.
“Michelle, you have gone through much in your short life. I don’t know what lies ahead for you, but I want you to promise me something. You have a gift, and that gift is to write. Keep journals. Write your life. One day your words will help others. Promise me.”
I nod. And then, for many years, I forget.
Trauma, loss, and survival slowly silence my voice. The need to write never leaves, but fear, responsibility, and the weight of life press it down.
Thirty years later, I begin again. I start keeping journals, partly to anchor memories threatened by autism, ADHD, PTSD and chronic illness, and partly because the seed is stirring. Perhaps one day there will be a book.
In 2007, another moment waters that seed. I am sitting in our living room with my husband, and our dear friends Marie and Dave who are mentoring us in the Christian faith. I speak about myself with contempt. Dave looks at me, points his finger directly at me, and says with quiet authority, in his firm Scottish accent “Never speak about yourself like that. Words carry life and death. Choose them wisely.”
Something shifts in me forever. I feel it right there and then, his words embodied, striking, revelatory. I know this is an important moment, the start of something that will be key to my journey. I begin to understand the sacred power of words.
In 2018, during a family holiday to our homeland Cyprus, I find my old teacher’s number. When she hears my voice she asks through tears, “Are you writing?”
This time I can answer, “Yes. I am.”
By then I am working on my first children’s book, Poppy’s Miracle, and slowly, the promise begins to take flesh.
That same holiday, sitting on a balcony reading email updates from missionary friends serving refugees, trafficked women, prisoners and orphans, I cry out to God, feeling helpless to help. “What can I do? I want to help!” And in the stillness, I hear the whisper
“Write stories.”
No strategy. No explanation. Just an answer.
And yet, when the fruit did not appear in the way I expected, when provision felt uncertain and doors slow to open, I strayed. I set my pen aside and built a business, coaching young people in entrepreneurship and personal development. It was good work. But it was not the work I was called to do.
For two years I ran, striving, exhausted, while my writing waited patiently.
Then God began to speak again through Scripture, through prophetic dreams, through the quiet insistence of the Spirit. He showed me clearly:
“I never asked you to do anything else. I asked you to write. Trust Me with the fruit.”
And I was gently reminded me that there had been fruit, in the letters from parents, in the children encouraged, in the testimonies of encouragement or healing through words I shared through my talks. During this whole time, I felt restless, frustrated,, aching for peace to fill my soul, battling immense physical pain from chronic illness, and yearning to find meaning. I was getting ready to fully surrender.
Finally, in January 2026, I surrendered. I closed the business. I deleted my social media. I laid down my fears about money, visibility, success, and outcome. I returned to writing and said yes again to the original calling. This time my “yes” was without conditions of an outcome but one of obedience and trust no matter what.
Chronic illness and disability have been part of this journey despite my rebellion against it.
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CPTSD in my early twenties, ADHD at the age of 49 and Autism at the age of 51. Though these diagnoses explain much about my struggles in life, they also gift me a different way of seeing the world, and my own way of writing.
I write. Writing helps me process my emotions, chaotic thoughts, and unpack my detailed dreams. Writing enables me to communicate with others, to create a legacy for my children. It also provides a method for meditation and prayer because my mind won’t be silent for me to concentrate. I silence it by writing. Writing is an extension of my voice, enabling me to say things I may struggle to articulate verbally when I am overwhelmed. Writing is my way of serving this world, sharing stories for children with important transformative messages for their tender precious hearts, and words of encouragement for adults. My physical body has many limitations as does my mind so writing enables me in to make a difference, to share hope, to say “I know, I see you, I feel your pain, you are not alone”.
Along this long journey, I have studied counselling, positive psychology, bibliotherapy, therapeutic writing, and other healing modalities not as an escape from the call, but as tools to serve it more faithfully. I know, deep in my bones, that I am called to use words for healing, and that words are the instruments God has placed in my hands. I am not the healer. I am the instrument.
When I am not writing, you will find me in nature, in my garden beneath Hope Mountain in Wales, on the beaches, and mountains of Cyprus, on forest trails when my body allows, cooking for my family and friends, reading, listening, and gathering stories. I am an introvert with a deep love for meaningful conversation, a mother, a wife, a friend, and a writer.