She lost sleep over wanting others to gain hope.
Melissa Coles sometimes would write into the wee hours of the morning when husband, Shawn, would find her pouring out some of the most personal details of her life — a near-abortion, sexual and domestic abuse in previous relationships, abandonment and more.
“Baby, its 3:30 a.m.,” he would say. “Are you coming to bed?”
The Hope resident remembers well.
“He put up with a lot from me,” Coles said, “and kept his patience as I navigated my way through my first book. I would look up to him and say, ‘I’m about done, I think.’”
Well, kind of done.
She will release the fairly dramatic, faith-based autobiography “Lifeprint: The Power of One Yes” on Wednesday. But she’s not quite done, because she’s already pushing to release a companion workbook. The book already has been endorsed by Indianapolis Right to Life.
The 49-year-old Coles is a nationally traveling Right to Life banquet speaker, encouraging adoption, telling her story of a near-abortion from an unplanned, teen pregnancy. She then gave up her son for adoption, only to find him years later — a story told in the documentary “I Lived on Parker Avenue” and then the nationally distributed Christian film “Lifemark,” that played locally at YES Cinema.
She is also a budding actress, with nine different Christian film roles in the works. Just this week alone, all those interests took her to Mississippi, then Texas, including stunt training school for an upcoming action movie.
”In between speaking and acting, I thought ‘I need to get my book done,’” Coles said. “(I was) thinking it was going to be one simple book. I could not be more wrong. ‘Lifeprint: The Power of One Yes’ really took it out of me physically and emotionally because I had to relive things from my past that I would rather forget.”
A publisher’s news release calls it “a book that shows resilience, struggle, darkness, humor, love, and most of all forgiveness throughout some of life’s most terrible circumstances.”
Why share all of this? She has said before that she wants to inspire and encourage others, including those who have had abortions, because she speaks of God’s grace in her own life at multiple moments.
“You’re never too old to chase your dreams,” she said. “I pray that this inspires you to go after your dreams.”
She fully realizes some may not understand this still-new path for a midlife, rural woman caring for 13 chickens at home. Yeah, she gets it.
Yet, she is clear that she is “mowing down the naysayers with the acceptance of each new role.”
In this determination, she quotes the spiritually militant Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper and any tongue that rises against me in judgment shall be condemned.”
Any questions?
“I will continue this passion,” she said, “so long as the fire is there for me to do so.”
