Popular speaker Ken Gire is the author of several books, including The Weathering Grace of God, Intimate Moments with the Savior, Windows of the Soul, and The Reflective Life. His new book is The Divine Embrace (Tyndale).

How did you come to faith?

I was brought up Lutheran in Fort Worth, Texas. I first started growing as a Christian not so much through the church as through Young Life. I went to a Young Life camp in Colorado.

The summer after my senior year in high school, I committed my life to serving the Lord in some way–a very halting, inarticulate way of saying, "You know, if ever you need any help with anything, I would be honored to help in some way." Something like that. Little did I know he would take that so seriously.

What was it about writing that tapped into your calling?

I ended up going to Dallas Theological Seminary after college. When I wrote my Master's thesis, I realized how much I loved writing. I got out of seminary and wanted to teach in a secular university. And suddenly I realized my degree from Dallas didn't mean much to that academic environment–I was told to go back and get a Ph.D. At that time I was married and had a child, and just had been in seminary for four years, and just was tired.

I was asked to start a church. I started a church in a rural area just outside of Fort Worth. It was during that time that I wrote my first book. It was a children's book called Treasure in an Oatmeal Box–a story about a set of twins, a boy and a girl, and the boy was mentally handicapped. And when I finished it I realized this is who I was, who God created me to be.

I tell the story of how I became a writer in Windows of the Soul.

Philip Yancey recently talked about the excruciating loneliness of being a writer.

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