Inspiration, you ask?
            By Chris Tatevosian


Just the other day I received a comment on my blog  whereby a woman, Irene, stated that I was an inspiration to others on the site. I replied, thank you for the kind words, but I don't think of myself as an inspiration. The funny thing is, I was in the process of writing an article for the Rest Ministries Magazine entitled “Inspiration, you ask?"  In this article, I attempt to explain how God intervened and turned my book into a book that can help millions of people rather than one person, myself, which was my original intention. Since my book “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me“ was published last August, it has become somewhat of a common occurrence where I find myself sitting before a group facilitating a discussion prior to a scheduled book signing and I find myself wondering, how am I going to use this experience to please God?  No matter what I have planned He shows up and unbeknownst to me, God has me address the point or topic He has planned to glorify himself. The venue for such an event in my recent experience has varied from a local public library, bookstore, coffee shop, church and MS support group meeting, but just like the Bible says, He is always with me.

For those of you who are not familiar with my book, it’s my real life story dealing with chronic illness or disability and the resulting stress put on your relationship as a result of life being interrupted by this unwelcome guest, which in my case happens to be multiple sclerosis. Recently I spoke before a group of approximately forty individuals attending a Friday morning prayer breakfast at the First Congregational Church of Hopkinton here in my home state of Massachusetts.

I had a plan for my discussion, but it went out the window with the first question. The first question posed by a gentleman showed the direction God would have me take this particular Friday morning. The question, “what was your inspiration for writing the book,” the gentleman asked? That happened to be the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. In some ways, I had been avoiding this question from the time I had begun writing the book back in 2003. This question reminded me of the ugliness and mean-spiritedness of my divorce.

You see during the process of my divorce the information that my ex-wife had provided her attorney, was embellished by her attorney for later use in court if that was necessary. Even though the divorce never came to that I was concerned that embellished, basically false information would be shared between my ex-wife and her friends and family. Therefore, the inspiration for writing my book at one time was to protect and defend my moral character. By doing this, in my mind I was clearing my name so to speak and that’s all I cared about. At some point God intervened and said, you know Chris instead of helping one person, yourself, you could use this book as a means, an opportunity to help millions of people dealing with the same stress, struggles and relationship difficulties you have undergone. By doing this you could help prevent others from making the same relationship destroying mistakes that you had made. That was the point, when I realized that rather than helping one person, I wanted to help, comfort and minister to the greatest number of individuals in need that I could reach. After all, helping people avoid making the same relationship destroying mistakes that I had made is the foundation for my having written this book.

In my book I state, “by writing this book if I can help just one person avoid making the same relationship destroying mistakes that I made, it will have been well worth literally making my life an open book,” and I believe that’s what God wanted me to do. “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me,“ is not always pretty, but it’s real and it is available from www.Tatepublishing.com. I hope you will give it a read.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us, “ (Romans 8:18).