Hello!
I'm Liane. (Pronounced "Lee Ann". When I was little, my mother would tell people my name was like "Diane" but with an "L", which might explain why people often think my name is pronounced "Lie Ann". But I digress...)
After two very significant toilet-on-the-sidewalk moments - an abrupt ending to my 15-year marriage and the sudden death of my teenage son -
I began pouring my heart out on paper, which eventually turned into blog posts. I've been blogging for nearly 8 years now, although less in recent years. But now that I'm a member of the empty nest club, I hope to get back at it!
Let me tell you a little bit about how my book The Toilet on the Sidewalk came to be...
The Toilet on the Sidewalk initially started as a series of blogs, after I lost my fourteen-year-old son in a tragic accident. It got its name from an actual toilet on the sidewalk I happened upon in my North Phoenix neighborhood, as I was taking my post-dinner walk in the weeks after Joe died. (Yes, the picture to the left is the original toilet on that infamous walk back in September of 2016!)
As you can imagine, my mind really struggled to comprehend and accept the new reality of my life. I found myself thinking about that toilet quite a bit, and it quickly became the metaphor for my current circumstances. After weeks and weeks of thinking about it, I decided I needed to get all those thoughts out of my brain and onto a piece of paper. I figured that would be the end of it.
But I had other thoughts, too, and God began planting the idea of putting my writing out there. I remember telling Him, "God, I only have 2 or 3 ideas. How can keep this going?" But God, in His incredible faithfulness, gave me idea after idea, and after a few years, I had written nearly 50 blog posts.
After posting a blog, friends and family would often say, "You should write a book!" But being a single mom and a full-time teacher, I had no idea how that could even be possible.
However, it DID become possible because of two incredible people in my life. The first was my sister. A couple of years ago, on my birthday, I received an email from her. She had taken all my blogs and put them into a Word document. "HBD! Love you, sissy!" was all she had written. But it became the starting point of my book dream.
That was the same summer I stepped away from my teaching role and was searching for a new full-time job that was more manageable and less anxiety-producing. I remember having dinner with my husband one night, lamenting about how I had no idea what I even wanted to do with this next chapter in my career. He said, "If you could do anything, without worry of income, what would you do?"
Without skipping a beat, I said, "I'd get a part-time job and write my book."
I'll never forget what he said in response: "Then let's make that a reality."
So I did. It was an incredibly painful process to go back and read the words I had written all those years ago. It was like being transported back in time to all those horrible feelings of trying to survive and being angry and, yet, so dependent on God. I ultimately ended up reworking all those blogs to be more devotional in nature, added questions and prayers, and hopefully, relating more to YOU, my precious reader.
YOU were always at the forefront of my mind as I wrote. Because if God could somehow bring comfort and healing to me after what I lived through, I know He can do the same for you. And if He can somehow use my words as a way to do that, I am all the more humbled by His grace and mercy.
May God walk closely beside you in your "toilet on the sidewalk" moments, as He has for me.