Zella Dixon didn’t want to write a book. She fought the soft voice that spoke to her one morning during her prayer and meditation time and said, “I want you to write.”
Like Moses, she questioned the call.
“Me write, Lord? I can’t even speak well,” she thought.
Hard of hearing since childhood and dyslexic, Dixon was an unlikely writer. She thought her brother, musical and intellectually gifted and good with words, would have made a better candidate. Stranger still, after her first humble attempt, her book manuscript was lost twice. Each time she’d breathed a sigh of relief, and each time it was miraculously found and returned to her.
Dixon could not refuse her destiny. So now, at age 78, her book, “A Warm Blanket for Rainy Days,” written with local author Dean Arnold, tells the story of her life of many joys and sorrows, some incredibly difficult losses, some intense storms. Each time she lost a beloved person, she seemed to receive from God a supernatural comfort that lay like a warm blanket upon her. Her message of love and hope is that our loved ones are never truly gone from us.
Her young life had not seen much trouble. Reared in Johnson City, Tenn., in a home with love, traditional values, and deep family connections, she shared a room with her grandmother until her marriage at age 18. She fell head-over-heels for her husband, Sherwin, a handsome professional baseball player with a kind heart that drew children to him like the pied piper. They settled into a wonderful life in Miami and had three children, two boys and a girl.
The revolution of the 60s took its toll on one of her boys, who struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism. The other made money easily and became successful in jewelry making. Her daughter gave the perfect balance to the trio. One night, Dixon’s mother was up late, unable to sleep, when she saw her daughter in law on the stairs, surrounded by an oval light. She told Dixon’s mom, “I’ve just come to tell you that everything will be all right.”
She had died two years earlier. It was after this vision that the losses began. Several family members died over the course of a few months, and there were more as the years passed. Each one tugged at a different part of the heart, forcing those left behind to come to grips with their helplessness and humanity.
Dixon remembered those words and learned that God had already sent His comfort in the most trying of times. A deeply spiritual woman, she has read a devotional every morning for the past 50 years, and so it was only fitting that her story be told in this form. There are meditations that will strike deeply, like the very first one, titled, You get stronger when you know you can handle whatever life has to bring. Or number 35, Self-knowledge is very painful, most of us prefer the illusion. In number 38, she writes, “Through my inner journey… I’ve learned that I do have a voice. I can speak.”
Number 43 is about former news anchorwoman Mary Ellen Locher who succumbed to cancer a few years ago, stunned me and brought tears to my eyes. Mrs. Dixon has given facials to clients at a local salon for many years. She can tell a lot about what’s going on in a person by analyzing their facial skin.
The treatment she gave Mrs. Locher went beyond a beauty ritual, however, and Mary Ellen wrote her a note that said, “How one can use one’s talents and through prayer, make a facial into a deep spiritual experience for someone?”
This devotional begins in light and ends in light. It’s a book that reminds us that in the midst of our darkest times, there is still a refuge to cling to.
To order a book, visit Creative Images at 1920 Northpoint Blvd, Ste. E. Hixson. Tabi Upton, MA-lpc is a therapist at CBI-Richmont Counseling Center and founder of www.chattanoogacounselor.com, an online self-help resource. Email her at tabiupton@bellsouth.net.