Sandra St. John
What happens when an ordinary day suddenly becomes a life-threatening experience? For Sandra St John, author of Back to Life, the answer became a deeply personal journey of survival, faith, resilience and hope.
In a recent PublishU Podcast conversation with Matt Bird, Sandra shared the story behind her book and why she felt compelled to put her experience into words. Her story is not simply about illness. It is about finding the inner strength to keep going, relying on faith and allowing the support of family and friends to help you through one of the darkest periods of your life.
Sandra is a mother, a Christian and an active member of her church community. She also works as a service analyst for a transport company, where she updates timetables and helps ensure passengers have accurate journey information.
Writing a book was not something Sandra had done before. Her decision to become an author came after experiencing three life-threatening conditions that changed the way she looked at life.
Sandra experienced sepsis, Strep A and a condition she refers to as HLH. Her illness also resulted in serious complications, including collapsed lungs, kidney failure and toxic shock syndrome.
The experience was sudden and traumatic.
There was no warning that an ordinary day would turn into a fight for survival.
Sandra says one of the main reasons she decided to write Back to Life was to inspire other people who may be facing difficult or life-threatening circumstances.
Her experience in hospital and intensive care was extremely challenging. She remembers being connected to machines and struggling to breathe. Yet throughout that experience, she held onto her faith and the determination to keep fighting.
For Sandra, faith played an important role in her recovery.
She describes relying on God, while also drawing strength from the people around her and from an inner determination to get through what she was facing.
“I had a battle,” Sandra explains in the podcast, describing the inner power that helped her continue.
That message of perseverance is at the heart of Back to Life.
Sandra did not face her difficult journey alone.
Her friends visited her in hospital, prayed for her and encouraged her. Some even sang songs to lift her spirits. Her husband also visited every day and played gospel music, which Sandra says helped her through the experience.
When someone is going through an overwhelming situation, practical and emotional support can make a meaningful difference. For Sandra, these moments of connection became part of her journey back to life.
Her story also highlights how hope can sometimes come through the people who stand beside us when we need them most.
Although Sandra knew she needed to tell her story, writing the book was not always easy.
One of the biggest challenges was having to relive her traumatic experience. Putting those memories onto paper meant returning to moments that had been extremely difficult.
But Sandra felt that she had to write.
She wanted to get the experience out of her system and share it with others who might be struggling. Her book became more than a record of what happened. It became her testimony.
Sandra describes Back to Life as an emotional book that captures what she was feeling during that period of her life, using her own words and perspective.
Before writing the book, Sandra had doubts about whether she could actually become an author.
She had never written a book before and questioned whether she could complete such a major project.
That changed when she joined Matt Bird’s writing course.
Sandra says the course gave her the structure, encouragement and opportunity to share ideas with other people. Rather than trying to write the book entirely on her own, she had a process and a community supporting her.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Sandra discovered that writing came more naturally than she expected.
She completed the entire book in just 100 days.
When Matt originally suggested that she could write a book in 100 days, Sandra admits that she did not believe it was possible. But she proved to herself that it was.
That achievement became another important part of her journey: moving from “I don't know if I can do this” to “Yes, I can.”
Ultimately, Sandra hopes Back to Life will reach people who find themselves in a dark place.
Her message is simple: difficult circumstances can change, and there can still be hope even when the situation feels overwhelming.
Her Christian faith is central to that message. Sandra believes that God helped turn her situation around and hopes her story will encourage others to hold onto their faith and believe that things can get better.
Her experience has given her a different perspective on life and a strong desire to encourage others.
Becoming a globally published author represents another milestone in Sandra's journey.
She describes the feeling as exciting and compares finally seeing her book published to giving birth to it.
Back to Life is ultimately a story of survival, faith and the courage to share a difficult experience so that someone else might find hope.
Sandra St John did not set out to become an author. She set out to tell a story she felt she could no longer keep inside.
By putting her experience on paper, she has created a testimony that she hopes will remind readers that even in the darkest moments, there can be another chapter waiting to be written.
Listen to Sandra St John’s full conversation on the PublishU Podcast and discover the real-life story behind Back to Life.
If Sandra’s story inspires you to tell your own, visit PublishU to learn more about becoming an author.
This article is based on an interview with Matt Bird, founder of PublishU, helping first-time and serial non-fiction authors to write, publish and market books worldwide.
Connect with Matt on Instagram 👉🏼 CLICK HERE or LinkedIn 👉🏼 CLICK HERE
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