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Divine inspiration

Gabe Hernandez/Valley Morning Star
Josefina Garcia Silva, a San Benito homemaker, recently self-published a collection of poems she wrote during the last 10 years in a thin soft-cover book called “Poems From the Heart.”
By MELISSA SOTO
Special to the Valley Morning Star
According to San Benito resident Josefina Garcia Silva the Lord does not work in mysterious ways. If you look and listen carefully, He always tells you exactly what he wants you to do, she says.

“You have to have a relationship with God and it has to be real and personal, and then he accomplishes his work through you,” Silva said.

The 52-year-old homemaker recently self-published a collection of poems she has written over the last 10 years in a thin soft cover book called “Poems From the Heart,” after she says she received a message from above.

“I felt a calling to do something with the words He had given me,” Silva said. “I’m excited about what God is going to do with it.”

The Bible study instructor refers to her writing as a gift from God, which she received in 1995 after two weeks of praying.

“I woke up at two a.m. and started to write God’s Friend,” Silva said.

Although Silva kept the experiences a secret for a year, she began sharing her writings with several members of Christian Fellowship Church in Harlingen. Through the encouragement of her women’s church group and the emotional and financial support of her husband Mario and sister Elizabeth Garcia Stansel, Silva decided to spread her messages on a larger scale.

“I realized this isn’t just for me,” Silva said. “I knew I had a ministry through the poetry and I wanted to get it out there.”

After several frustrating attempts to get her work printed, she found Infinity Publishing, an online publishing company, when a friend encouraged her to try looking for a publisher on the Internet.

“I started in January last year, compiling and praying,” Silva said. “It was a slow process, but He would lead me, talk with me and share with me what my plans would be.”

Despite the daily guidance, it would be more than a year before Silva would hold in her own hands the collection of 48 poems, each written in response to different incidents affecting the lives of the people she knows and loves, including family, friends and neighbors.

Forgiveness, a poem about the Golden Rule – do to others what you would have them do to you – is one of Silva’s favorite pieces because she sees the act of forgiving as a spiritual and healthy process.

“I cannot hold a grudge because I want to be forgiven when I do something wrong. I try not to do anything wrong, but I am human,” the mother of four said. “A lot of people are sick because they do not forgive.”

Silva cannot explain why she was chosen to fulfill this responsibility, but she does believe it has something to do with her extreme faith in God and her personal joy in helping others find His way.

“I can’t take credit for it,” Silva said. “I know God has trusted me with these poems and I have shared them with close friends and close family – it’s ministry to them. It is going to touch a lot of lives.”