NATCHEZ — Waking up and jotting down thoughts was simple for Alana Watkins.

Getting Watkins to finally structure those ideas into a 270-page devotional was not as simple.

Watkins said the Lord gave her an idea in 2008 to write a 60-day devotional titled “My Granny Used to Say.” Watkins gathered some notes and stored them in her nightstand drawer, but she would not pursue her eventual paperback devotional until 2012.

“I saw myself doing fiction,” Alana said. “About eight years ago, I woke up with an idea to write a devotional. I can’t really say I aspired to do this. I felt like I was inspired to do it.”

Watkins, who was born and raised in Natchez, lives in Katy, Texas, with her husband and pastor Greg Watkins. Alana is an English teacher, teaching 12th grade English in high school and instructing freshman and sophomore classes as an adjunct English instructor at Lone Star College.

Alana took an absence from teaching in 2012 when she answered the “Lord’s call.”

“When the time came, God said now,” Alana said. “It just flowed after that.”

After succumbing to her internal feelings, she assembled old expressions from her grandmother, Rosie Lee Stone, for the March 11 release of “My Granny Used to Say.”

A compilation of sayings such as “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” “God gave me two ears and one mouth, so I can listen twice as much as I speak” and “Every duck praises his own pond” serve as a template to get her message about Jesus Christ to the public.

“After I pair it with a scripture, the actual devotion could be an actual lesson that I’ve learned through my own life, or it could be from the Bible that reveals that truth,” Watkins said.

Watkins wasn’t always a devout Christian, though. Before meeting her husband in college, Watkins was your average “CEO,” going to church on “Christmas and Easter only.”

Though she might not have been a regular in church, her grandmother made sure she was on the right path, always disciplining and guiding Watkins after she moved in with Stone as a sixth grader until she moved out for college.

“She was the constant in my life,” Watkins said. “I say that because growing up I didn’t have my father, and my mother was coming and going. My grandmother was the one person who was there always, all the time.”

Watkins said her grandmother prayed and talked about the Lord faithfully, and though she didn’t attend church, her grandmother’s religious customs influenced her.

Greg and his family would eventually change Watkins’ church-attending habits.

“When I met his family, I was truly introduced to the Lord,” Watkins said.

She started attending church in 1987 with her husband in Atlanta, where the seed was planted.

“The Lord started drawing on my heart,” Watkins said. “I developed an interest, so I started reading. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I kept reading and went to church. I just felt this pull.”

Ever since her “birthday,” the day she was baptized in 1990, Watkins has served the church alongside her husband.

“For me, she has been a Godsend,” Greg said. “She has been so many things for the ministry, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she yielded to the Lord and started writing.”

Before the passing of Stone in 2004, Alana had the opportunity of watching her grandmother live her favorite bible verse. It was Acts 2:38 — “Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” — that changed Alana’s life in 1990. Years later, she watched her husband baptize her grandmother at the age of 74.

The words of Stone will forever be etched in paperback, and those wanting to read her expressions can purchase them in Watkins’ devotional at tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-62994-432-6 for $15.99.