We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jonathon McClellan . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jonathon below.

Jonathon , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I’ve always been on a mission, since before I really understood what my mission was. If you asked me, “If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?” I would tell you that I already have it. Although I love to fly when I’m lucid dreaming and imagine myself being able to affect reality with my mind – I do not need any of that. What I’m most proud of and what I consider to be the power I already possess, is simply, kindness.

At the age of 19, I started working at Children’s International – whose mission it was to help underserved children around the world. Life can have many valleys and dimly lit places, but when one experiences the joy of giving to a child in need, perhaps a hot meal or a new pair of shoes for school, you receive the kind of joy that never goes away. It was then that I realized that my mission was to help people by exercising kindness.

I believe that the best way to exercise kindness it through empathy. This requires putting oneself in the other person’s shoes and giving them the same measure of love that you yourself desire. As an author and professional speaker, my mission is to effectively communicate that empathy and teach others that the world will be a truly wonderful place if we all did the same.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

At first, I started writing as a way to encourage myself. When I was 27, I wrote my first poem entitled, “Beauty for Ashes.” It was about finding purpose from pain. And I was in a lot of pain. I grew up homeless, in and out of foster care and group homes, physically and emotionally abused, and battling with Schizophrenia. In fact, it was so bad that I had attempted suicide four times. Writing was my way of making sense out of my senseless world and desperation.

But then something remarkable happened. I found the courage to share the poem with my small group at church. I was nervously sweating, trying to find the courage to be vulnerable. To my surprise the whole room was in tears by the end of my reading.

Someone who is still a very dear friend to me was in that group, Dan Peeler, one of the co-authors of the “Dragons of Romania” series along with Charlie Rose. He encouraged me to write devotionals for the church, and it was then that I realized that the secret messages that I felt God was giving me were not just for me alone – I needed to share them.

For two years, I poured my heart out into my writing. I even started a small grassroots initiative where I would go out into the community and read my poetry to strangers and raise money for the homeless. With each reading, I gained more and more courage and conviction that this was what I was supposed to be doing. Practically everyone who read or heard one of my poems had profound reactions, as though the words had some secret power in them.

In 2020, the pandemic hit the world like a sledgehammer to the soul. It was no longer safe to go door to door anymore. By then, I had so many poems written that I did not know what to do with them all, and I had to find a new way to reach people. I spoke with Dan and asked him if he would show my manuscript to his publisher. The name of the book was “Messages of Hope.” And again, to my surprise, that fall I got a book deal! Not only that, but my publisher, the Texas Book Publisher’s Association, wanted a seven-book series. Somehow, I even managed to write a children’s book, “The Ant’s Palace,” which Dan and Charlie beautifully illustrated, and both books were released in March of 2022.

My life changed after that. After an interview on Fox’s weekend program, Good Day, my books became overnight bestsellers on Amazon. I received the golden seal from Writer’s Digest magazine for an essay in the book, “My First Bicycle,” a story about childhood homelessness based on personal experiences. And I even toured around the country reading poems with the Emmy award-winning all male chorus, the Turtle Creek Chorale – and that was my debut as a public speaker. I stood on the same stage as my hero, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at Carnegie Hall, reading a poem entitled, “Those Most in Need” – a piece about reconciling with our oppressors and coming together. Today, I carry on the work of sharing the message of love.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There is no hell, no torment, no torture that compares to my experience of having Schizophrenia. But without this illness, I would not know what I know, today.

I dug out of trash cans for food. I became a drifter, a vagabond. I almost lost myself entirely to this illness. It started off small at first; hearing voices, seeing things that no one around me could see, and every waking moment was filled with sorrow and loneliness, for my demons were all too real for me. And for seven or eight years, I lived in this waking nightmare.

But I never stopped praying. Never stopped writing. These combined with medication helped me to endure. I cannot, in all honesty, claim to be resilient. Rather, there is some strange benevolent force whose resilience to love me persists in my life. The mystery of how I survived four suicide attempts, for me is a very clear indication that there is a God of love, who loves us all without prejudice and without constraint. Alone, I am a very feeble man, but this unmovable force has lifted me to heights that would not be possible unless He did, in fact, exist.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about myself. Because the world will tell you that you are unlovable, unworthy, and less. After I stopped consenting to my critics, I started to finally hear my own voice, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” said the God in me.

If you silence the noise of this world, then you can hear Him, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: jonathonmcclellan.me
• Facebook: Facebook.com/newseedsofhope
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-mcclellan-2b4491242/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_o6CVKctMRf-3bqmtM9LA