Raised in a single-parent home in Toronto, Sheila Wray grew up with a love for reading and writing. She even gave her short stories to her family as Christmas presents. But it never occurred to her to become a writer. Instead, she used her ability to write essays as she earned master’s degrees in sociology and public administration at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Sheila married Keith Gregoire, a medical student, in 1991. After his graduation as a pediatrician, they moved to his hometown of Belleville, Ontario.
As a teen, Sheila had dedicated her life to God. Now, she happily settled into life at home, supporting her husband, raising a family and being active in her church. But she found she still had free time. Believing this time was a gift from God, she prayed for Him to show her how to use it wisely.
One day, she sold a joke to Reader’s Digest. “That was an incredibly easy way to make $200,” says Sheila, “so I started searching on the internet for other magazines that wanted fillers.” She found a listing for a Christian Writer’s Market Guide and ordered a copy. She was amazed at how many magazines wanted articles about ordinary life. One magazine, Celebrate Life, was looking for “stories of abortion or children with special needs.”
A year earlier, despite pressure to abort, Sheila had given birth to a son, Christopher, who had Down Syndrome and a heart defect. According to Sheila, “The 29 days that he lived were probably the most meaningful of my life.”
She wrote a query letter about Christopher and sent it to Celebrate Life. The resulting article, “The Least of These,” was published in May 1999.
Developing writer
Sheila continued writing articles and praying for God to show her how to use her time wisely. She and Keith decided one thing they should do was homeschool their two daughters. But she found she still had time for other things, so she kept writing. Then, one day, the light went on. The writing, which seemed so easy for her, was what she was supposed to do!
She began to look for a book publisher and found Kregel Publications was interested. To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother was published in 2003, and Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight! Help for women who want to feel more in the mood in 2004.
Sheila began writing a column called “Reality Check” for her local paper in 2002. It was also picked up by Penticton Southern Exposure, Living Light News in Calgary and Christian Life Times in Long Island, New York.
Although the local paper recently dropped her column (and is now facing a flood of unhappy readers), another, larger paper immediately picked it up. Sheila knows that some of her ideas aren’t popular with everyone, but she feels there is a “deep desire to read ‘common sense’ values in the media,” and that “the urge to only present one side of the story still wins out in many newsrooms.”
She recently self-published Reality Check, a collection of her columns.
Sheila has also discovered a talent for speaking, possibly inherited from her grandmother. “She used to read children’s stories on the radio in Winnipeg in the 1930s. People would recognize her voice decades later.”
Mission to share God’s love
When asked what she now sees as her mission, Sheila says, “I just want to call people, no matter where they are, closer to God, even if they don’t know Him yet.”
Right now, she is “frantically trying to finish up a gift book, How Big Is Your Umbrella? Staying Dry in the Storms of Life, which talks about all the different storms we may face in life and how to stay strong in them, rather than letting them bowl us over.”
The book will focus on painful things, including the death of her son. And it is a little hard to write. “Christopher lived from August 6 to September 4, 1996, so the memories are really fresh right now,” she says.
But there is an upside. “It’s so wonderful to take the trials of your life, the mistakes you’ve made, the regrets you have, and use them for God’s glory by writing about them. I can see tangibly that my life is making an impact,” she says. “I don’t know anything that could be more of a blessing.”
Visit Sheila’s website at sheilawraygregoire.com
N. J. Lindquist is the executive director of The Word Guild (www.thewordguild.com). Her mystery, Shaded Light, was released last fall.
Published in ChristianWeek September 2, 2005 Volume 19 Number 12
