Karen Wright is the epitome of self-control: always capable and in control to bear others' burdens, especially those of her husband Bill and siblings Travis and Melissa. However, inside, Karen suffers from high anxiety and a mild heart attack has led to regular consummation of nerve prescription. In the new Christian novel by author Ron Short, The Need Word, Karen's taking of her prescription leaves her almost unconscious in sleep and not aware of her young nephew's near-fatal run-in with a car. Now the woman who doesn't like the word "need" finds that she needs God, as she goes under criminal investigation for child endangerment and prepares herself to go inside a woman's prison. As she cries out to Jesus within her cell's walls, Karen starts to see God teaching her the power of needing others and experiencing spiritual transformation from self-control to controlled in grace and love by God.