Fox News legal eagle Shannon Bream says her new book, “The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak: Lessons on Faith from Nine Biblical Families,” reflects both her evangelical Christian experience and the research skills she honed in law school.
“I’m a total nerd,” said Ms. Bream, anchor of “Fox News @ Night.” “I love to learn and one of the best things law school did for me was that skill of research, and that there are always multiple sides to the story and you’ve got to go dig all of them out and find them.”
Her book, published Tuesday, presents family stories known to generations of readers in a riveting style that suggests a “Masterpiece Theater” plotline more than a Sunday morning homily. Ms. Bream will host a special program on the subject Sunday night, Fox News Channel said.
Ms. Bream, 51, said she hopes readers find strength and inspiration from the biblical women’s stories, just as she found through prayer when thoughts of self-harm struck at her lowest moments.
She spent years unable to sleep more than two hours at a time, suffering from an extreme case of dry eye coupled with a “genetic cornea condition that I didn’t know about,” she said.
Although one doctor claimed that she was “too emotional,” Ms. Bream said she was “living in chronic pain … and just constantly walking through a fog as my condition got worse and worse.”
“I was always praying, you know, those nights when I couldn’t sleep and I was on the bathroom floor just in pain, looking for anything that could possibly help relieve it and having no answers,” she said.
A three-word supplication, “Lord, help me,” was all she could muster during those nights, but “I knew that God understands suffering,” she said.
Reading the stories of others with similar conditions online, Ms. Bream said “it didn’t sound crazy when [other sufferers] said they just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.” She said, however, “I knew it wasn’t the right decision for me.”
Instead, her praying led her to confide in her husband, Sheldon Bream, a professional speakers representative and a brain tumor survivor. Together, they found a doctor who could help, and Ms. Bream says the past decade of treatment “has been a bit of a miracle in my life.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the title of Ms. Bream’s new book.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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