“It started out with me and my kids. I wanted them to have a Bible study that we could do together, that we could enjoy.”

Alicia Stewart, a teacher of 7th grade English at Mineola ISD, was frustrated with the lack of family Bible studies available with “real-world application.”

“The Bible study books that are out there are just, like, the same things over and over and over. There’s no real-world application,” she said.

For Stewart, the natural conclusion? Write a book of her own to enjoy with her kids.

“I was like, ‘I’m just going to write a book for me and my kids, and we’re going to do a Bible study together. And I’m going to write a story that’s based on, like, a real-world application, so they can relate to it’,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to write or publish something…and (the idea) came to me – it’s probably God saying, ‘You need to do this’ – and so, I’m like, ‘I’m going to write a Christian children’s book!’”

In each of the 11 “stories” of the book, Stewart has prepared a pre-reading lesson from the Bible, discussion questions, a story with the aforementioned “real-life application” and a summary with related Bible verses.

“(In) every story, a part of it is something myself or my kids have learned. And every story is related back to a characteristic of who Jesus is,” Stewart explained. “And I think that’s why it’s important. Because I get to teach them about who Jesus is. So that’s the most important thing.”

Between raising her five children, teaching full-time and running and working on her farm, one would think writing and publishing a book would take Stewart years. But that is not the case; according to her, the process took only 12 months from beginning to end.

“If I were diligently on it, (the writing) probably would have been like three months,” she said with a laugh. “But since I’ve been teaching and I have five kids myself, it took me about a year.” 

However, the process of writing and publishing her book, Stewart says, couldn’t have been easier. 

“It came like this to me,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “It was a God thing!”

Covenant Books agreed to publish her book, helped edit her book and “proofed everything.”

“They did all the illustrations – I mean, they put everything together!” she said. “They just took all my ideas and put it on paper…. There were no hiccups (in the process)…it just was really smooth. I can’t believe how smooth it was! (God) just made it happen.”

Even during the more difficult portions of writing the book, Stewart says that her husband was highly supportive and encouraging. Her students, too, were cheering on Stewart for the duration of the project:

“They were so excited,” she said. “I went into one of the classrooms – one of the other English teachers’ that taught the kids that I had when I started this book – and I was like ‘I got my book published!!’ and so they were like (cheerful shouting)!, because they remember,” she said, smiling.

Now that her book is published, Stewart says she’s “just along for the ride;” whatever God wants to do with the novel, Stewart says, she is open to.

“I just hope it gets to the people that it needs to go to,” she said. “People are like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna be a millionaire!’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t care about that!’ I mean, literally…I feel like I’ve written it, and God’s going to disperse it however He wants to.”

Luckily for Stewart, her kids, for whom she wrote the book in the first place, love it.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my goodness – what if they don’t like it? What if it’s boring to them?’” she said with a laugh. “But now every time, it’s like ‘We want to read your story!’…and it’s just real special for us.” 

She’s already begun writing a sequel to the book, which will be titled “Living Like Jesus for Kids Two.”

Anyone interested in checking out Stewart’s book can purchase it online at Amazon.com, bookshop.org, ebay.com and more.