The Story Behind The Story

In the past, when readers have contacted me and let me know how much they appreciate Chop, Chop, I have tried to personally respond to tell them the story behind the story. Unfortunately, as the number of people who read Chop, Chop grows, this has become more and more difficult. Soooooooo - while I really love to connect on a more personal level with my readers, I feel it is more important that the story behind Chop, Chop is shared with as many people as possible. For that reason, I'm telling the story here. If you haven't yet read Chop, Chop, but intend to, please wait to read the following until after you have.

My husband has a cousin named Tammie. She and her husband, Dean, had four children. The oldest, Daniel, was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma when he was 14. It is very rare in children and always terminal. They told him he had 6-9 months to live.

Daniel decided that he wanted to spend whatever time he had left, bringing as many people to Christ as he could. I don’t know many 14 year olds who would prioritize that way! (Obviously the character of Greg was written to reflect someone who would have!) Daniel actually lived for almost two years and – together with his family – used what he was going through to glorify God’s name. Throughout the whole thing, their main concern was to bring others closer to God. After he passed away, two of his friends spoke at his funeral and hundreds of people heard the message of salvation.

Exactly five months after Daniel died, I was driving home from work and I was thinking about this. I started to wonder what it would be like for a young man to lose his best friend if both of them were strong Christians. All of a sudden, the whole story for Chop, Chop came flooding into my head. I started writing that evening (even though I was working on another piece that really needed to be finished - I couldn't NOT write!) I know this story was from God, because I was writing things that made no sense to me at the time (like why Laci and Greg were sending their hair to Locks of Love and why Greg was always making hand signals). When I wrote the end, I was amazed – I was like “Wow! That worked out really well!” That was because God put the whole thing together! Everything came to me so fast that I wrote seemingly non-stop and had the whole thing written in exactly two months.

After that, I was saddened that it was “over”. One night I prayed to God and thanked Him for giving me the story and told Him what a wonderful experience it had been and I told Him I would really appreciate it if He would make that happen again. The next morning, I woke up with the first two sequels firmly in my head and I wrote each of those in two months each, as well.

This is just a little part of what God has done and I can’t express how much He has used this experience to change my life and bring me closer to Him. I just wanted to share that with you and make sure you knew where all the credit for the stories goes!

Thank you very much for sharing some of your precious time with me. I appreciate it - and each of you - so much. Many blessings ~ Leeann