Retired hospice nurse pens book on faith

A retired Wapappello home health care worker enjoys sharing how God answers prayers in her life and the lives of others, but she resisted putting those accounts on paper.

Jeanie Selby kept telling others she wasn’t a writer, but family and friends kept encouraging her to compile a book.

“Well, I did not want to write my book,” Selby said. “You get so excited when the Lord does something and you tell people, you tell your friends over and over. They kept saying you need to write a book.”

She and her husband, Gary, have been married for nearly 43 years.

“We raised two wonderful daughters,” Shelby said.

J’anna Couch and her family live in Corning, Arkansas, where she’s the city clerk. Daughter Montana lives in Bolivar, Missouri. They have five grandchildren.

When she shared with her daughters, “They’d go ‘Mom, you need to write a book,’ and I would reply I would never write a book.”

One day while cleaning, Selby felt God’s desire for her to put together the stories.

“Lord, I know nothing about writing a book,” she said. “If you want me to tell the stories, you’re going to have to bring them back to my mind. At the end of the day, I knew exactly the stories. There were 26.”

Her first book, “And I Will DECLARE HIS GREATNESS Stories of God’s Goodness and Faithfulness Through Answered Prayer,” contains 40 stories.

While they are from her own life, many feature others’ struggles.

While living in Corning, she hurt her back while working for the Arkansas Highway Department.

“I had a friend who worked for Lucy Lee Home Health,” Selby said. “She asked me to help. She said, I know your back is weak, but if you will just do an hour and rest, we will give you another person. The Lord healed my back through the years.”

Selby realized home health was where she needed to be and worked for the Visiting Nurses with hospice patients for 20-plus years before she retired three years ago.

The Selbys have lived in Wapappello for 23 years. Since she’s retired, the couple continues to help their neighbors.

“I absolutely love helping people,” she said. “It’s what me and my husband do.”

Selby claims she couldn’t do what she does if it wasn’t for her husband, “believing in me and believing in the Lord.

“Any other husband would have told me, ‘You’re nuts.’ He could have said, ‘I’m not doing that,’ but he gently went along and at the end always saw God was working.”

Halfway through preparing the book, Selby realized, she had handwritten everything.

“No, it has to go on the computer,” Selby explained. “Fear came over me. I said, ‘Lord, I need a proofreader and I need a publisher. I don’t have either one. What am I doing?“

She turned to Facebook, which she seldom uses, asking for help locating a Christian publisher and a proofreader.

Within five minutes “my friend Gail said, Jamie Duplantis will be the perfect proofreader.”

Duplantis is a friend in Texas who writes stories for Hallmark.

“I immediately said back, ‘Jamie would be perfect, but she has too many irons in the fire, I would not ask her to do such a thing,” Selby said. “This circle popped up in Messenger, and it was Jamie. She said, ‘Jeanne, I would be honored to proofread your book.’ Then another circle popped up.”

This time it was a family member saying her daughter was a Christian publisher.

“I burst into tears,” Selby said.

At the appointment with the publisher, Selby was asked me to tell her a few stories. After hearing some of the stories, the publisher said, “I would be honored to publish your book.”

Selby’s response was, “Are you kidding?”

The publisher said, “There’s books on prayer, but not stories like yours.”

After writing the book, an anxious Selby sent it to the publisher.

“I’m really nervous because she still didn’t have to publish my book,” Selby said.

The publisher asked Selby questions about various stories. When she answered, the publisher’s reply was, “Well, that’s it. “

Selby questioned, “What? Surely I have to change things. I thought she’s not going to do this. I said, I told you, I wasn’t a writer.”

The publisher’s reply was, “No, Jeannie, you’re not. You’re a storyteller and that’s even better.”

“When the book came out, I gave it to the Lord,” Selby said.

The book is available on Amazon or anywhere books are sold online for $16.

“I order books myself, because I’m all the time either giving them away, or people will write me and I will send them books,” she said. “Gary and I, we don’t make any money off this book. The money, we put in a blessing fund to help people because it’s God’s book.

“I gave it to him. That’s whose book it is. He helped me write it. It was amazing to me I didn’t have to change one thing and I’m not a writer.”

She wants the book in the hands of others.

“I want people to read it. I want them to know God. Sometimes we feel like God doesn’t hear us but he does. He hears every word. What he does, might not be what I’m thinking, but I know He’s here and hears every word. He proved to me ‘never doubt me,’” she said.

The book was published by binspirebooks.

Selby is working on her second book about answered prayers.