Story

Growing up in Canada, my favorite pastime was swinging & singing, belting out homemade tunes to Jesus & the whole neighborhood which I was sure was straining to listen.

In my middle school years, I faced a lot of rejection; so I wrote poetry to heal the broken places.

A high school English teacher told me I should enter my bag lady poem in “The Canadian Author and Bookman’s national poetry contest.  I did, and to my shock, I won!

I was so pumped about poetry that I majored in Creative Writing.  I then attended Bible College where I met my man…

Dwight & I share a lot of commonalities: We both endured difficult childhoods, we’re both overly sensitive, & we’re both recovering anger-a-phobics.  A match made in heaven!

God gave us two great boys, ages ten and fourteen.  We love telling them God never wastes pain.  When we give Him our mistakes, He turns them into stepping stones!

When I was young, I watched key Christian leaders trip and make moral mistakes that affected my life.  God used those situations to show how He forgives and restores.  He taught me not to place my faith in fallible people, only in the one infallible God.

I learned that some of our pain and problems stem from our mistakes, the mistakes of others, and the fact that we live in a fallen world.

Still, when my young friend, Chantale, was dying of terminal lung cancer, I wondered “where was God?”

We won’t know all the answers until heaven, but looking back, I see glimpses of His presence and purpose in my time with Chantale.

She taught me how to focus on heaven.  I loved writing her poems from Christ’s big-picture perspective.

If I hadn’t known grief, I’d have nothing to say.  Only a God who never wastes pain could have known my poetry would turn into the Zondervan gift book,“A Friend in the Storm.”

As I grow closer to Christ, He grows my compassion.  I don’t know your story, but I know God aches to be your Friend in the storm.  If you give Him your pain, He won’t waste an ounce.  If you’re willing, He’ll use it to some day comfort others.

He wants to beckon your closer, and I hope you’ll say “yes”.  You’re the apple of His eye.

He wants to be “A Friend in the Storm.”