The Books That Shaped the Woman Who Wrote STOLEN

Before I ever became an author, I was a reader.

For years, books have met me in different seasons of my life—sometimes with words I needed before I even knew I needed them. They have challenged me, encouraged me, helped me understand Scripture differently, and reminded me that God can use someone else's story to bring truth into our own.

As I prepare to release my first book, STOLEN: True Story—Kidnapped, Rescued, Redeemed, I have been thinking about the voices that helped shape the woman who eventually had the courage to write it.

Writing STOLEN required me to revisit some of the hardest parts of my story. My father kidnapped me when I was seven years old and took me to Jordan. I was eventually rescued and brought home, but I have learned that rescue and healing are not the same thing.

Healing came over years.

It meant confronting father wounds, learning to forgive, understanding my identity, and discovering that the God I had always known was trustworthy even when my circumstances had made trust difficult.

Along the way, God used His Word first and foremost—but He also used the words of other people.

Here are a few books that have stayed with me.

Trusting the Whisper

I still remember reading Trusting the Whisper as I was just beginning the journey of writing my own first book. Later, I had the opportunity to sit across from its author on The Redeemed Podcast, which made the experience even more meaningful.

The message was simple, but it was exactly what I needed:

When nothing makes sense and fear feels louder than faith, trust the whisper.

Writing STOLEN required that kind of trust.

I didn't know how to write a book. I didn't know where the journey would lead or how people would respond to the most vulnerable parts of my story. I simply believed God was asking me to share what He had done—not only in my rescue, but in the decades of healing that followed.

Sometimes obedience doesn't begin with certainty. Sometimes it begins with hearing the quiet invitation of God and taking one step.

Perfect Father

For much of my life, the word father was complicated.

My earliest understanding of a father included being kidnapped, lied to, and taken away from everything familiar. Even after I came home, those wounds affected the way I understood love, trust, acceptance—and eventually God.

How do you trust God as a Heavenly Father when your earthly father caused some of your deepest pain?

That question became a significant part of my healing journey.

Perfect Father helped me continue separating the failures of an earthly father from the character of my Heavenly Father.

God wasn't asking me to pretend my wounds didn't exist. He was inviting me to discover who He really is.

Today, I can look back and see how patiently God has revealed His love to me. The word Father that once carried so much pain has become a word of safety, belonging, and love.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

My story has always existed at the intersection of two very different worlds. My mother raised me in the Christian faith, while my father was Muslim. As a child, I experienced both church and the mosque, and when my father took me to Jordan, I was immersed in a culture and faith tradition very different from the life I knew at home.

That is one reason Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus impacted me.

It reminded me that God pursues hearts.

We don't have to fear people who believe differently than we do. We don't have to win an argument before we can love someone. We are called to show the love of Jesus—to listen, to care, and to trust that God is capable of reaching people in ways we may never see.

That truth is deeply personal to me.

For years, I prayed for my own father. His story reminded me that no person is beyond the reach of God and that our role is not to force transformation. Our role is to love faithfully and trust God with the heart.

The Stories We Share Matter

Now I find myself on the other side.

In a few weeks, STOLEN will sit on a shelf beside books written by authors whose words have encouraged someone else to keep going.

That thought humbles me.

I know what it feels like to open a book and find a sentence that seems written specifically for the season you're walking through. I know what it feels like for someone else's courage to give you permission to confront something in your own life.

That is part of why I finally said yes to writing STOLEN.

Yes, it is the story of a kidnapping and an extraordinary rescue. But it is also the story of everything that came afterward: father wounds, fear, forgiveness, identity, faith, healing, and redemption.

My prayer isn't simply that people read my story.

My prayer is that somewhere within its pages, they recognize something in their own.

Maybe they realize that forgiveness doesn't mean what happened was okay.

Maybe someone with a father wound begins to believe that God is not a reflection of the person who hurt them.

Maybe someone who has been praying for years without seeing an answer remembers that God can be working even when we cannot see Him.

Or maybe someone standing at the beginning of something God is asking them to do finds the courage to take the next step.

I am grateful for every author who took that step before me.

Their words became part of my story.

And now, as I prepare to release mine, I pray God will take the pages of STOLEN and place them into the hands of the people who need them most.

Because we never know what God might do with one person's willingness to tell the story He has given them.

Now I would love to hear from you: What book has shaped your faith, helped you through a difficult season, or changed the way you see God?

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