Nathalie Bujold Ryan
About Nathalie Bujold Ryan
I’m not sure how much you’d like to know about me. Equally, I’m not sure where I should start. So let me start near the beginning…
My Early Years
I am the oldest of four children. My father was an officer in the Canadian Air Force and my mother was a nurse. Because of my dad’s career, we moved around quite a bit. But because he was aircrew, we could only move where the kinds of aircraft that he flew in were, so we didn’t move as much as some military families.
But I’ve moved enough times that I don't immediately know how to answer when anyone asks me where I’m from.
It depends on how you define “where are you from”. If you mean, where I was born, my answer is Sherbrooke, Quebec. If you mean where I grew up (for most of my childhood and adolescence), my answer is Greenwood, Nova Scotia. If you mean where I’ve lived most of my adult life, my answer is Edmonton, Alberta. And if you mean where I live now, my answer is Halifax, Nova Scotia. So, as with a lot of things in life, the question “where are you from” depends, in large part, on the perspective of the person asking the question.
My Life as a Christian
My spiritual life has been nearly as fluid. I was brought up Catholic. My family attended church service at least once per week (more often during Easter and Christmas).
When I was seventeen, my parents figured I was old enough to decide for myself whether to go to church or not.
For thirty years, I hardly stepped foot inside a church. During that time, I still believed in God, but my belief was lackluster, to say the least. Even through several difficult life experiences, I continued to keep God at arm’s length. Luckily, God never gave up on me.
The catalyst for my renewal of faith came gradually, beginning with my daughter’s birth.
I had experienced the loss of four children over three prior pregnancies. But finally, after twelve years, I was able to hold one of my babies in my arms. All was well. Except that as my daughter began to grow and develop, I noticed that her emotions and behaviors were significantly different from other children. She couldn’t cope with the world around her, no matter how much help she got from me.
Her behaviors took such a toll on me emotionally that I began to fantasize about leaving her and my husband, and moving far away so they wouldn’t find me. I knew it was wrong for me to have these thoughts and feelings about my child and I never acted on it even though the temptation to disappear kept coming up again and again. Instead, I stayed with my family, relying on my own strength to keep me on the right path.
After many assessments, my daughter was finally diagnosed with autism when she was nine years old. At that time, because her emotional outbursts were so severe, she was admitted as an in-patient in a children’s psychiatric assessment unit. The program she was in had her stay at the hospital overnight during the weekdays, but she came home every weekend. This went on for five weeks.
Every weekday night my daughter was there, I missed her so much that I cried myself to sleep. When she was finally discharged, I felt convinced that the temptation to leave my family, the temptation I’d been feeling off and on for years, would disappear. All I had to do was remind myself how much I missed my daughter when she was in the hospital, and I would be able to banish the temptation to leave once and for all.
Within three weeks of my daughter being home full-time, the temptation to run away came on again, stronger than ever. Fighting it off, as I’d done so many times before, I wondered how many more times I could do so. To me, it felt that it was only a matter of time before I gave in to the temptation and left. I realized I needed help.
Now, along the way of my daughter’s assessments and diagnoses, I have received help. Help from well-meaning professionals who tried to convince me that if I understood my daughter’s difficulties enough, and I had the correct skills to deal with them, then everything would be fine. And I did take their advice to heart. I applied the information and skills to my life with my daughter. It made me a better servant to my daughter’s needs, which helped. But it didn’t help me—me as an individual. An individual with my own emotions, my own thoughts, my own needs.
How God Reached Out to Me
As it happened, one morning, I had a particularly difficult time getting my daughter off to school. By the time I got back from dropping her off at her specialized program, I felt particularly defeated. I came inside the house to discover that my husband had left the television on when he left for work. It must have been left on for some time because 100 Huntley Street was wrapping up its daily program with a prayer.
Although I can’t remember the exact wording of that prayer, I do remember that the words pierced me through the heart. As I stood there stunned, the prayer spoke directly to me, assuring me of God’s love and His desire to help me…if I would only let Him.
After so much time away from the church, I didn’t know how to reach for God’s outstretched hand. But as someone who always loved books, I figured that I might as well start there. So, I began my journey back to God through books.
One of the first books I read was “The Reason for God” by Timothy Keller.
Reading that book changed my life.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not.
One evening, while reading “The Reason for God” I suddenly understood what Jesus did for me (and for all of us). In an instant, I understood the full implication of his sacrifice. I understood it as not only happening then, nearly two thousand years ago, but also how it is constantly, perpetually happening…forever. It’s a sacrifice that transcends Jesus giving up his human life for me (and for us all).
The understanding I received that evening was the moment of my rebirth as one of God’s children. Since then, I’ve been made aware that God wants me to use the talents he’s given me to further His kingdom. For a long while, I wasn’t sure how exactly to do that.
Who is My Target Audience
Gradually, I felt particularly moved to write for people who, for one reason or another, have resisted making a clear choice between good and evil. People I like to refer to as the “fence sitters”. People who believe that being a good person is enough. People just like I used to be before God touched my heart.
I don’t write to convince die-hard atheists to accept God. I leave the softening of their cold, analytical hearts up to the Good Lord Himself.
Equally, I don’t write to bolster my brothers and sisters in Christ. That mission is a worthy one, but it isn’t mine. Although fellow Christians can benefit from reading my books, helping them stay on course isn’t my mission either.
Rather, my mission is to reach out to those who teeter on the edge of full belief in God. Through my stories, I hope the “fence sitters” will see themselves in the characters I create. And I hope that the “fence sitters” will open themselves to the light of God’s love in their lives.
My first published novel-length fiction project is The Trib Trilogy. All three books in the trilogy are available exclusively on Amazon on January 15, 2025. Meanwhile, I’m currently beginning work on my new book, which I’m hopeful will be ready for publication in early 2026, if not earlier.