Robin L. Reichert takes you on a spiritual journey as she explores the inner life of Jesus in her book, “Diary of a Man Called Jesus: His Life and Missing Years” (232 pp., $9.99 print).

Reichert covers Jesus’ entire life, but her novel focuses on the years from his childhood until the beginning of his ministry before his death. None of this time is recorded in the Bible. There have been innumerable speculations about this period, many of which have him traveling to the East to gain the wisdom he later shared in the Holy Land.

Reichert also has him traveling in the novel, searching for the Magi who visited him at his birth. The book takes a first-person viewpoint, beginning with Jesus’ relationship to his mother and speculating on his reflections about the wisdom he discovers from various teachers.

At many points, it reflects Reichert’s own quest for knowledge, which has been a lifelong pursuit. The idea for the book came to her at an important and emotional time.

“Two years ago, I was feeling very lost. I wondered what I was supposed to do next,” Reichert says in a phone interview.

She loved her occupation as a massage therapist, but was forced to give it up because of problems from a previous back injury.

“There was something happening. There was more in me that needed to come out. This idea popped into my head.” Her idea for the novel came to her right after this low point.

She was frightened at the thought of writing the story, but was reassured by friends. Finally she told herself,

“If I don’t do this I will be mad at myself for the rest of my life.”

She was surprised that it only took two months to write her novel. “All I had to do was put my fingers on the keys,” she says.

Reichert was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and grew up in small towns in western New York State. She lived in Emmaus for a time and now lives in Erwinna, Bucks County. Her father was a Methodist minister.

“He encouraged me to answer questions for myself.” He kept an open mind, Reichert says. “He began to ask me about what I was discovering about other spiritual traditions.”

Portions of the novel reflect her interest in Native American spirituality, which also started her work in storytelling.

Reichert, a member of the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild, is a regular at Guild events and has appeared at Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center and Allentown’s Mayfair Festival of the Arts.

In the mid-1990s, she was working in a Native American store. The owner believed that storytelling would increase business, and convinced Reichert that she could do it.

“I was really shy back then, but I came to feel that I was not that person anymore. I began talking to little kids, and they made it easy. They really appreciate and listen.”

Stories her parents told her about Jesus when she was a child had a powerful effect on her. “I was told, ‘Jesus can be your friend.’”

“From the age of six to nineteen, my mother was very ill. I was her caretaker when my father could not do it. She was often not in a good space.

“Jesus was my invisible companion. He stayed there in my heart.

“Even when I studied other spiritual paths, Jesus was always there in the background as a loving, caring presence.”

Reichert has also written the book, “Earth Divine: Adventures of an Everyday Mystic,” a book of personal reflections taken from her journals, and has released the storytelling CD, “Mystic: Stories of Magic and Wonder.”

She has a number of books waiting in her computer. The next one has the working title “My Church,” inspired by a poem that takes a religious view of nature.

“Literary Scene” is a column about authors, books and publishing. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com