A Happy Plug

Three summers ago, my mom asked Adam and me if we’d help her start a blog. “Do you want to have a theme?” I asked her. “Or just write about your life in general?” Adam had helped me start a blog a few months earlier and I mostly wrote about motherhood after infertility. “I want it to be about getting through the hard phases of life,” she said. “I want it to be encouraging.” Adam helped her search for an available domain name and she finally settled on Getting Through This: Encouragement to Keep Moving Forward. She was off and writing.

Two months later my parents found themselves sitting with a group of doctors, trying to absorb the awful reality of my dad’s diagnosis: terminal cancer. Everything was put on hold. Everything except my mom’s writing. Instead of quitting the blog she’d just started, she considered it God’s plan for her to write about the cancer she and my dad were facing. No matter what happened on any given day, she’d post something about it that night on her blog. Sometimes her posts were tearful, sometimes hopeful. They were always anchored with Scripture.

When my dad went to heaven just six weeks after his initial diagnosis, my family was devastated, my mom most of all. During her first year as a widow, we all worried about her. She spent more time alone than she ever had, writing her blog and walking on the beach with her dog Jack. Was she deeply depressed or just grieving? Should we leave her alone? Or make sure she wasn’t alone? We were all at a loss over what to do. But my mom wasn’t—she kept writing.

More and more people found their way to my mom’s blog. We wondered if she should take a break, some time to simply process her thoughts without an audience reading them. But she was attached to her readers, especially other widows, and she loved writing for them each day. As God led her through the grieving and healing process, He continued to give her encouraging words and she continued to share them. She is still doing it today, almost three years later.

God says that He comforts us in our sorrow so we can turn around and comfort others, and my mom has lived that out through her blog. She didn’t decide to get through her own trial before she could help anyone else. She was willing to be a blessing just as she was, a grieving widow.

And God continues to work through her. Her latest project is sitting next to me as I type: a book! I just looked on Amazon and oh my goodness, there it is—my mom’s book. It’s not officially out yet, but Hope for an Aching Heart: Uplifting Devotions for Widows can be pre-ordered now. My mom sent me a copy and I started crying at the very first page. It’s good. Really, really good.

I’m so proud of my mom for her willingness to do the work God put before her. The older I get the more I’m convinced that God really does want to bring good out of every hardship we face, if we will only let Him.

PS — Tomorrow is my mom’s BIRTHDAY. I just know she wants me to spread the word.