This morning, Jan Harrison will be signing copies of her book, "Life After the Storm," in Chattanooga. Last Monday, she was up early for a four-hour drive from her home in Charlotte, N.C., to Atlanta to give a devotional to the staff at Chick-Fil-A headquarters. On Tuesday, she did the same thing at Billy Graham's Headquarters in Charlotte.
And earlier this month she was in Nashville as a finalist for Book of the Year at the K-Love Fan Awards, an event to honor Christian musicians, writers, TV shows and athletes.
All this for her first, just-published book.
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If You Go› What: Chattanooga Book Launch and Book Signing for Jan Harrison’s “Life After the Storm.”›When: 9:30-11 a.m. today.›Where: The Urban Lawn, 306 W. Main St.›Information: janharrison.com or connell.pinckney@gmail.com
She began to feel the call of God in her life, and she prayed a simple prayer, "Lord, I don't know but I want to know."
To help her in the journey, the person she calls "my first mentor in the faith" offered her a verse from the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible: "'I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and give her comfort there."
In time and with much study, the student became a Bible teacher and sought-after speaker in Charlotte.
But in 2010, she entered the wilderness of grief when the Harrisons' son, James Franklin IV, died suddenly in Kenya. In the years since, she turned to God, found comfort and now says: "What is there to fear in the wilderness if God is there?"
Many have asked her to write a book about her spiritual journey after the death of her son. Harvest House Publishers joined the chorus of requests, and this spring the book was born. She shares what she's learned in "Life After the Storm," noting that "God did not do one thing for me that he would not do for anyone."
"I never wrote anything. I am just an ordinary person," Harrison says, shaking her head in wonder. "No one would have looked at me in the (Girls Preparatory School) class of 1973 and believed that I could be so changed, so broken and so available to be used. In fact, I am surprised myself."
For both readers and listeners, Harrison seems to step off the page and down from the podium to offer empathy for their personal storms and struggles. This increasingly public life could overwhelm a private person who loves one-on-one, locked-eyes interactions, but the book has offered a similarly personal, humbly honest connection for Harrison with many others.
"I am grateful for the experience of hearing the words I've written actually be talked out, questioned and applied," she says with a smile.
She has had encouragement and support from her considerable local family. Her daughter and son-in-law, Morgan and Jay Everett, live here with their children. So does her mother, Jan Morgan, and her brothers Jeff and Jay and their families. Frank Harrison's mother and sisters and their families live here, too.
The first step in this new life of broadening influence may have been when she returned to Chattanooga, invited to be a speaker at GPS and some local churches.
"I want to be more available and share and care with others," she confirms.
That desire reached a high point during the excitement and glitter of the K-Love Awards.
"It felt like an out-of-body experience," she says. " I was overcome with God's goodness.
"There is a time in the Bible when David has been through many hard things. He asks God, 'Who am I, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?' This is how I feel. There was so much talent that night at the event in Nashville. To even think I was allowed to come into that circle was amazing, but the best part was that all that talent was surrendered talent, for God's use."