Over the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to be interviewed by Georgia Free, Hope 103.2FM broadcaster and producer. I shared my story with her on three separate occasions for over 3 hours. Georgia could see from sharing my story that it won’t be the usual 30 minute episode for her Finding Hope podcast, it will be something far more. This is exactly why I also made my book series of my life story into a trilogy! My life is hard to read / hear in a sitting, and in Georgia’s words:
“Mel Baker is the kind of person that’s hard to describe in a few words – or even a few sentences.”
Georgia Free, Hope 103.2FM
The first episode was aired on radio and released to the public on Wed 12 October. This was the first of four parts. My childhood story. It is deep, dark and at times hard to listen to, but it gives you the idea of what my first book Sleeping Under the Bridge is about, and how we can find hope through adverse conditions. Georgia went on to say:
“Mel has been through worse pain, hurt, abuse than some could ever imagine. But that’s not what defines her. What defines her is what she did afterwards.”
The second episode was released today on Wed 19 October. This is a brief summary of what is coming in book 2, Building the Bridge. As I reflect back listening to this episode, it is a story of how someone can survive child sexual abuse. What happens to their lives? How do they get up “dust themselves off” as Georgia describes in episode 1, and truly start living? We often don’t hear those stories – the years afterwards and how it affects their internal rhythm and external world. It is something my books certainly delve into, as it is at these points in life we can truly state the learning and wisdom of living.
To me in hearing episode 2, it brings together an interwoven fabric of life – one that searches for meaning, walks in faith, finds trust and forgiveness out of the depths of traumatic experiences. We need to hear / read / watch more stories that go beyond the dramatic to the actual hard part of living. Isn’t this what life is really about? It’s messy, it’s reflective, it’s deep, it’s gritty, sometimes it’s dark; but through these times we grow more strength than we can ever imagine to a place that we can indeed live through even more!
Episode 1: available now on link, Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon music
Episode 2: as above
Episode 3: as above
Episode 4: coming out on Wed 2 November 2022
–Mel