Have you ever looked at your life and tried to figure out how the plans you thought were taking you in one direction suddenly ended up somewhere you never envisioned?  I have.  And I didn’t see it coming.

On October 2, 2006, my life changed.  My husband and I were married almost 10 years.  I was a stay at home mom to 3 young kids (ages 7, 5 and 18 months). I thought we had a good relationship.  I loved my family.  Life was simple. When I woke up that morning I had no idea that before lunchtime I would become a widow, my kids would no longer have a father, and my community would face heartbreaking devastation.

My husband committed the Amish Schoolhouse shooting.  My simple, predictable life was over.  I could not comprehend how this man I loved, this man who loved our kids, was capable of killing children.  But there was no way to deny it.  Everyone asked me to answer for Charlie’s choices, but I didn’t have answers.  All I held were broken pieces of the life we built and the promises we made. I felt devastated and desperate, but not without hope. God was our constant, and I knew I could trust him. He had showed me in countless ways throughout the years that he was faithful.  To me, this was much bigger than anything I had faced before, but I knew he didn’t see it that way.  He saw our pain, not from a distance, but from the place where we stood. That day I chose to surrender my brokenness and trust him with something I could not see my way through.

God promised redemption.  And he has kept his promise.  Let me tell you about our journey.  You can see/hear me talk about it in this short video.

And if you find yourself walking a similarly unexpected road, know that the same God who writes his redemption story in my life is writing one in yours.  Nothing is impossible.  His love never fails.