Who am I and how did I get here?

Welcome!  I think it is important to share a little bit about not only who I am and how I got here, but also why I decided to start a blog.  So, here goes…

In 1995, I moved to a new city to get a new start.  I had come through a pretty rough patch of life and needed a new start.  I found a really good job, saved up some money for a couple of years, bought a piece of land and had a house built for myself.  I was content.  I was good at being alone.  Life was good.

In 1997, a guy name Taylor move back to the same area where I had just moved.  He too was coming off of a pretty rough patch of life and was looking for a new start.  He also found a new job.  It just so happened to be at the same place where I had found my new job.  God brought these two people together in 1997.

It was far from “love at first sight”.  I tried for months to get him to just go away.  But as we got to know each other over time, we realized that we were both at the same point in life.  The strength of our bond was that we had come to know each other at the lowest point of our respective lives.  We encouraged each other and built each other up.   I had become a Christian and was baptized in 1988.  In 1998, Taylor came to faith and was baptized.  We were on a good path and we were growing together.

In 2000, we were married.  Little did we know that just 14 years later Taylor would be diagnosed with a terminal cancer.  Never could we have imagined that Taylor would not make it to our 15th wedding anniversary.

In 2016, I published a book about our Faith Journey Through Cancer.  I wrote about all of the Scripture that was important to us through those 9 months.  All of the love, humor and all of the ways that we saw God move as we traveled this journey.  To pause and look back at all that God accomplished during that time, it is so humbling that God could use us and that situation in so many ways.  These are not our accomplishments, but His; we were along for the ride and were so blessed to see just some of what was accomplished.

Publishing that book also marked the beginning of my ministry.  This was another thing I would have never imagined.  I have been managing a Facebook page where I post encouragement and things I have learned as I continue to grow through this Widow Journey.  Many of these posts are frankly too big to be efficiently managed on Facebook.  So this week I took another step forward and started this page.  Please pray with me that God will continue to use me, our story, and now my story and growth to encourage and minister to others.