The Miracle Season is the kind of feel-good sports movie you haven’t seen before. It focuses on a high school girls’ volleyball team – the Iowa City West High Trojans.
Sports movies often feature a team of men and women trying to overcome insurmountable odds. But The Miracle Season isn’t just about the road to victory – it’s about healing.
The movie follows the true story of Caroline Found (nicknamed Line by her teammates), a young woman full of personality, drive, and compassion who passed away after a moped accident. Her death, and the consequences of it fuel the film. Found was so loved by her teammates, her school, and her community that losing her left an unfillable void.
That’s why Caroline’s father, Ernie Found, decided to give his blessing to the movie.
“We were trying to think of what good can come from this in some way, shape, or form,” Found tells Guideposts.org of his daughter’s passing and her team’s efforts to rally and win a state championship in her name. “Not that only good can come of it. It stinks, and it hurt immensely, but here’s more to it. If this film can help others, it’ll be worth the effort.”
Found, who lost his daughter and then his wife to cancer just two weeks later, features heavily in the film. He’s played by Oscar-winning actor William Hurt on-screen. The movie not only follows the girls as they struggle to fill Line’s spot on the team and make it to another state championship but Found as well.
After the passing of his daughter and wife, Found could’ve easily retreated into himself, shut out the world, and grieved in private. Instead, as the film shows, he made a point of attending every volleyball game the season after Line died.
“I felt like I had to go,” Found says. “I was hurting, they were hurting, friends were hurting, classmates were hurting. I just felt like, it’s going to be good for everybody, just to hang in there together. Let everybody know that we’re all in this together and every little bit can help.”
That sense of community and togetherness is what ultimately tugs at the heartstrings when watching the film. With Line serving as the team’s guardian angel – angel imagery is featured heavily in the movie – Found providing comfort and a rock-steady presence. With the team’s coach, played by Helen Hunt, driving them to success, we watch as this group of girls galvanizes an entire town to honor their teammate with an inspirational motto: “Live Like Line.”
“’Live like Line’ means to live to put a smile on somebody else’s face, to try to bring joy to others, because it’s in giving of joy that you’re going to be also receiving joy,” Found says of the message of the film and his daughter’s legacy. “To live like Line, means it’s a privilege, an honor to be living, and it’s okay to go the extra mile. It’s okay to work hard, it’s okay to make mistakes.”
He hopes that’s what audiences will ultimately take away from his family’s story.
“When you get right down to it, living like Line is, “Let’s all do this together.”’
Easter is here—with its promise of spring, its big family meals, its inevitable chocolate bunnies and jellybeans. But what does Easter really mean? What does the message of Easter bring to us humans knee-deep in messes of our own making?
The Easter Message
First and foremost, it means that we serve a risen Savior. The grave could not hold Christ; he defeated death. He paid the price for our sin with his own blood. And the consequences for us are huge.
“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10). Because Christ lives, we will live, too–both in this life and in the life to come. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
The message of Easter was first spoken to two women at Jesus’ tomb, in these simple words: “Do not be afraid…for He is risen” (Matthew 28:5-6). Jesus is with us and gives us his ability to overcome any defeat. The true Christian realizes that he, with Christ, rises above every setback, every obstacle and enters into the true meaning of living.
The message of Easter tells us: You need not be afraid of anything—not life with all its insecurities, its conflicts, its uncertainties; not afraid of even death itself. You need have no fear—no fear!
When your spirit is filled with the unshakable strength of God in the name of Jesus Christ, you get faith so deeply planted within you that when crises hit you—as they sometimes do suddenly—you automatically can look life in the face and not be afraid. You can say with the Apostle Paul, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
As you learn the message of Easter, remember: Easter is here. Be transformed. Be resurrected. Be not afraid!
Bible Verses About the Easter Message
Reflect further on the message of Easter with these powerful verses from the Bible. Read them on your own during your Easter prayers or aloud with the whole family as you do your Easter celebrations.
Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:34-35)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3)
He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. (2 Timothy 1:9)
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. (1 Corinthians 15:20-21)
He was made for this. Erik Pauze, the tree scout for Rockefeller Center, loved trees as a kid and was a horticulture major in college. Fresh out of school he landed a job with the gardening team at the famous New York City plaza, climbing the ranks to head gardener. For more than a decade, Erik has driven through Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, scouting evergreens, making a list and checking it twice, like Santa on wheels.
What does he look for? Seventy-footers at least, with perfect symmetry, “green, lush and full,” he says. “Sometimes people don’t believe me when I say why I’ve come. That’s when I show them my business card.” The crew fertilizes the hopefuls and considers how they fare during bad weather. The branches must be strong enough to bear the weight of 50,000 lights and a 900-pound crystal star on top. Erik still gets goosebumps during the countdown to lighting. “It’s a great feeling,” he says. “And everybody’s happy.”
Erik isn’t just a tree guy; he’s a people person too. He keeps in touch with families who have donated their trees over the years and calls them when he’s in their area looking for another one.
With all his experience you’d think he’d be the one to pick out his tree at home. “The family votes on it,” he laughs. “They just want me to bring my pickup to get it to the house.”
The light didn’t register at first. I must have written it off as an all-too-familiar symptom of my alcohol-induced hysteria. Slowly, however, it dawned on me that the room was pervaded by an incredible brilliance pouring through the open window.
I moved toward the source of the light but was literally driven back by the searing intensity of it. I could not keep my eyes open.
I sat down heavily, shielding my eyes with my forearm, trying to discern the source of this violent illumination. This was no gentle light. This was dominant, almost brutal. It demanded my attention.
Ever so slowly I felt myself give in to the light, in an act of involuntary surrender. All power was being drained from me. I was dying. This was the light of death.
Gradually there was a diminution of its intensity, and along with it a baffling calm welled within me, as if the very light was flowing in by particle and wave, filling the void it had hollowed out. I felt incredibly, indescribably at peace.
And with that I fell into a deep, restful sleep.
Construction activity and a cold breeze woke me. I rose and went to the window, leaning out, my gaze met by a handful of workmen just a few yards away. Attached to their scaffold were several huge work lights, which were on and extremely bright.
I slammed the window shut. And started laughing. Was it those work lights that had created the illumination I’d experienced, the hallucinatory perception of some divine cosmic light? Had that—a work light—been the true source of my epiphany?
But did it matter? Because that serenity that had overcome me just before I fell asleep lingered. I could still sense it within me, not fully expressed but there, hovering and humming. It was the manifested internalization of that epiphanic experience, real or otherwise, that mattered—and who cared if a work light was the culprit? It was my feeling of serenity, however tenuous, that was the real blessing and would be the seed of whatever change and growth might come next.
Mic in hand, I looked out at the thousands of people standing on their feet, singing at the top of their lungs. I’m the lead singer for Casting Crowns, and the feeling of that many people singing my songs never gets old. That Saturday night, February 28, 2015, we were playing the Carson Center in Paducah, Kentucky, our last show before heading home to Georgia and church the next day.
Almost all of the songs I’ve written over the years have a story behind them, a real-life person or experience, often from leading the youth group at my home church. That night, the opening chords of our song “Voice of Truth” rang out and the crowd responded. I sang, “Oh, what I would do to have the kind of faith it takes to climb out of this boat I’m in.”
Community Newsletter
Get More Inspiration Delivered to Your Inbox
The audience sang along. It’s why they were there, to be uplifted by our music, and even more, by the message in it. But I wasn’t feeling it. It was like my own lyrics were taunting me: Dude, you don’t have that kind of faith, not to weather this storm.
Somehow I got through the song. As the crowd cheered, I stood quietly for a moment, thinking about how my life had been turned upside down just a few weeks earlier.
We’d been near the end of our tour, 80 concerts spread over six months, and I hadn’t been myself. It was like my get-up-and-go got up and went. My back hurt. I was having stomach pains, acid reflux. I felt worn out. I needed a break.
Not that I was going to get it. I work full-time as a youth pastor at Eagles Landing First Baptist Church, just south of Atlanta, part of the reason we only tour Thursday through Saturday. I lead worship for a group of more than 300 middle- and high-school kids. Answer their questions about their faith, about God. Comfort them when they’re feeling down, when someone in their family’s sick or struggling.
That’s my true calling. It’s the job I was doing before Casting Crowns was even a thing. In the beginning, writing and performing songs was just a way for me to connect with the kids.
I’d called my doctor, who’s a good friend, and told him my symptoms.
“Dude, you’ve gotta lay off the pizza,” he’d said. “Let’s do some tests. I want to make sure that you don’t have a stomach ulcer.” Wednesday, february 11, first thing in the morning, I went in for a CT scan. Right after that, I went to a funeral for a church member. Near the end of the service, I felt my phone buzz. I sneaked it out of my pocket. There was a text from my doctor: Bro, I need you to call me.
I went out to the parking lot and called him back. “We found something on the scan,” he said. “There’s a mass on your kidney. It looks solid. I think it’s cancer.”
What I heard was, “You’re going to die.”
“Listen, if you were to lay every type of cancer there is out on a table, this would be the type of cancer you’d want,” my doctor said.
I wondered why I couldn’t just get a whole different table. I hung up and walked to my car in a daze, wondering how I was going to break the news to my wife, Melanie. Our four kids. Our church. The youth group. The band. The idea of telling them all made my head spin.
I thought, Maybe no one besides Melanie needs to know. I didn’t want to scare our kids. I definitely didn’t want everyone feeling sorry for me or making a fuss. I didn’t want people sharing inspirational pick-me-ups they saw on Twitter. Telling me everything happens for a reason. All the stuff I’d seen happen to other people who were hurting.
My job, my calling, was to be a comfort for them. To give them strength. I wasn’t going to be the guy who needed help and prayers. No way. This was between God and me. A private battle.
I called Melanie, told her about the tumor, that the doctor had said not to stress about it. I avoided using the word…
“Is it cancer?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying.”
Our youth group Bible study met that night. I tried to joke around, be present for the kids—including my own—act like everything was normal. But all I could think about was that there was something malignant inside of me, trying to kill me. At the end of Bible study, I went to my office and sat down at the keyboard. Started noodling around.
Slowly words came: “No one would blame you, though, if you cried in private, if you tried to hide it away, so no one knows, no one will see, if you stop believing.” Was that what I was most afraid of? Not dying but, rather, not believing and having people see my faith falter?
The next day, Melanie and I went to see a urologist. He agreed it was likely cancer and ordered a second CT scan for confirmation. We drove home in silence. “How do you want to tell the kids?” Melanie finally asked.
“I don’t want to upset them,” I said.
“They’ll be okay,” she said. “We’re going to get through this together.”
I talked to each of our kids individually, from youngest to oldest. I tried to be strong, but they saw right through me. What if by being open, I’d made everything worse?
Friday the urologist told me my kidney would have to be removed. I’d be laid up for at least four weeks. “You won’t feel one hundred percent for a while longer,” he said.
There was no way I could keep this a secret.
I had to let everyone at church know, but I was too chicken to do it. So I told one of the pastors and he announced it at the end of Sunday service. I’d hightailed it out of there before anyone could catch me. I couldn’t take having all eyes on me, the looks of pity. By the time I got home there were, like, 90 texts on my phone.
I told the kids in youth group that Wednesday night. That was hard. “How could God let this happen to you?” some asked. I tried to explain that faith doesn’t spare us from hardship, but I could tell they were shaken, questioning everything I’d taught them. I told my bandmates the next day. It never got easier. Each time, it felt like the words were being pried out of me.
Now, with less than two weeks till my surgery, I stood onstage at the Carson Center in Paducah, staring out at the crowd. They were moved by our music. Why wasn’t I? Why did God feel so far away?
The next song on our set list was “Just Be Held,” one of the few that didn’t have a specific story or person behind it. I’d written it two years earlier and had never been entirely sure why. The band started up. There was no time to think. I had to sing.
“There’s freedom in surrender… when you’re on your knees and answers seem so far away, you’re not alone, stop holding on and just be held….”
It was as though I was hearing those words for the very first time. Suddenly I knew who this song had been written for, and why. God in his infinite wisdom had given it to me two years earlier, knowing how desperate I would be after my diagnosis. I didn’t need to hold it together. I needed to be held, to accept his love from as many people as wanted to share it with me, to receive their prayers, all the prayers I could get.
I didn’t quite have the nerve to tell the crowd then and there. But back home the next day, I e-mailed the morning-show hosts at The Joy FM in Atlanta. “I wanted you to know I have kidney cancer,” I wrote. “Please ask your listeners to pray for me.”
Almost instantly they e-mailed back. Could they come interview me live? I could almost feel the ground shifting under my feet. I’d have to put my cancer, my fears, my hurt, myself, out there. I would have to be vulnerable. Then I remembered the ultimate vulnerability of Jesus when he was nailed to the cross for all mankind to behold. It gave me the strength I needed.
The interview didn’t take long. That afternoon, on Facebook, I had messages, prayers and love from more than 90,000 people! Someone started a Twitter hashtag, #prayformark. By the next morning, it was trending number three around the world. I wasn’t totally sure what trending even meant. All I knew was I could feel the love coming from all directions. I felt lifted. God was cradling me in his arms, holding me tight.
That love helped me through the surgery and the 11 days I spent in the hospital, recovering from complications. It got me through the next four weeks while I was laid up in bed. Melanie and our kids and I hung out, watching movies, talking and praying. Cards arrived from all over the world. Prayer quilts. Photos of youth groups. It was humbling. Overwhelming.
I carry that love with me even now, two years later. These days I tell my story at every concert, asking cancer survivors to stand and be recognized. I don’t mind being the hurting guy, the vulnerable one, anymore. Because I know we’re all in the same boat, arms outstretched in the storm, just needing to be held.
Did you enjoy this story? Subscribe to Guidepostsmagazine.
Rows of lavender bushes stretched all the way to the horizon, a sea of purple.
“Are you going to be okay?” my husband, David, had asked that morning before he left for work.
Community Newsletter
Get More Inspiration Delivered to Your Inbox
“Don’t worry,” I replied, trying to ignore the pain spreading up my back.
Now the sun was broiling. High noon. Buds from nearly 300 plants had to be harvested by dark! I’d waited too long—till the last day before the buds would bloom, wanting to get the maximum crop.
Even after three hours, I’d barely made a dent. My back was on fire. These plants! I’d never get to them all. And soon there’d be 700 more ready to cut! This was not the relief I’d prayed for.
For 15 years I’d suffered from fibromyalgia, my neck and lower back constantly inflamed. It was a mysterious, chronic pain in my muscles, aggravated by the slightest pressure. It hurt just to lie down. I couldn’t remember my last full night’s sleep. Tossing, turning and worrying, I was drained before I even got out of bed.
How could I’ve made such a colossal mistake, thinking I could be a lavender farmer? I’d had a good career managing the printing of catalogs. But my job, more and more, required sitting at a computer. The pain was excruciating.
I was desperate to find work that didn’t require sitting for eight hours. I fantasized about being my own boss, setting my own schedule, and started taking business classes.
“What do you love doing?” the instructor asked one night. “Follow your passion.”
Gardening. That had been my answer. My flower beds were my sanctuary, where I prayed and felt closest to God. But how could that be a business?
A few weeks later I was in my garden. The lavender had just bloomed. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with its fragrance. My muscles relaxed, peace sweeping over me. If only I could make this last.
Then it hit me. I could grow lavender! I’d read about people selling soaps and creams made from the oil. I did research and wrote my first business plan, showed David how it came out.
We owned enough land to plant 1,000 bushes on an acre then another 1,000 the next year. In three years the first oil-bearing buds would mature. I’d sell products online and at festivals.
“Go for it,” David said. Thinking about the field, tending the plants after work, got me through the years until I could quit my job. Now my first harvest was happening.
I bent over a bush, grabbing stems with my left hand. With my right I pushed a serrated knife into them. The bushes were covered with purple buds, filled almost to bursting with oil. All those years I’d dreamed of this moment. Hours of planting, watering, pruning.
If I didn’t get these bushes cut, tomorrow when they blossomed, the oil—with the income—would waft away. It was on me. There was no money to hire help. David couldn’t take time off from his job.
The stems were tough and I pushed harder. The blade slipped, nicking my thumb. A ribbon of blood trickled down my hand. This was impossible! I had to be doing something wrong.
Cautiously, I took hold of the stems again and sawed through them. At this pace I’d be lucky to get to a quarter of the plants. I have to speed up! But each time I bent over, needles of pain shot across my back.
I pulled a rubber band around the cut stems and put them on a cart next to me, atop the growing pile I’d bound since morning. Once I was done harvesting, I had to hang each bundle in the barn to dry. But I couldn’t think about that now.
The knots in my muscles twisted tighter. I straightened my back. Would I be able to walk tomorrow? God, I don’t know how much more I can do. I need your help. I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Ah, the sweet perfume of lavender…
I took another deep breath and blocked out all but the bush in front of me. With a few quick jerks I slid the knife through the stems and moved to the next plant.
The sun was racing toward the horizon when I reached the end of the row. I’d harvested 100 bushes, less than a third of what needed to be done.
I moved to the next row and in the fading light reached for more stems. I found a slow rhythm, but time was running out. It was getting too dark to see. Finally I had to stop halfway down the row. It was pitch black.
I strained to push the cart piled high with buds to the barn, breathing in the powerful aroma. I’d never worked harder, never put more sweat—and blood—into anything, but I felt like a failure.
One after the other, I tied lavender bundles to wooden frames, which I then hooked to the rafters. Would this day ever end?
It was almost midnight when I collapsed into bed next to David. He was already asleep. He’d worked late too. I was glad not to have to tell him about my day. My body felt pummeled. It was going to be another long sleepless night. I tried not to move. All I wanted was to…
The next thing I knew light was streaming into the bedroom. It couldn’t be morning. I didn’t remember closing my eyes. But I was wide awake. I hadn’t woken once during the night. It was hard to remember ever feeling this…alive!
I swung my feet to the floor. Ugh! A deep, dull ache surged in my back. The harvest! It had nearly killed me. I pushed up from the bed. Strange. Lowered myself down and pushed up again.
I had aches in muscles I didn’t even know I had, but it felt invigorating. It was healthy pain. The inflammation, that constant life-draining pain, was gone!
Could it have been the lavender that helped me, its healing aroma? I went to the kitchen. There was David. Usually I was up way before him. “Hey, sleeping beauty,” he said. “I was hoping you’d wake up before I left for work. Let’s see the crop.”
I hesitated. What would he think when he saw how little lavender I’d harvested? “Are you sure you have time?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” We walked to the barn, the air thick with humidity. Slowly, I pulled the barn door open. With a rush, the moist air was saturated with the most incredible fragrance. It enveloped me, wrapping me in a warm, soothing blanket of lavender.
I gazed around the barn. Racks full of purple buds covered the rafters. The barn looked like a cathedral of purple. Had I really cut all this? David’s eyes were wide. “I had no idea,” he cried. “I’m so proud of you. You’re a lavender farmer!”
I’d been so focused on my pain, on what I couldn’t do. Now, for the first time, I saw what I had accomplished, not just in that one grueling day, but over three years of daily nurturing.
I’d harvested something far more valuable than lavender. God had long ago drafted a plan for my life. I knew there’d be challenges, but I wasn’t worried. I had a partner who was never going to let me fail or suffer without reward.
I jumped when the phone rang at my desk at Fort Lee. That February, 2007, my son, Pat, was in Iraq, a second lieutenant in the Army. My first instinct was to fear the worst. I couldn’t help it. It’s a fear that haunts most military families.
“I’m calling from the Pentagon,” a woman said. My hand gripped the receiver. I knew this wasn’t how the military would notify me if Pat was dead or wounded. Still, I was scared. Nine months earlier a bomb had killed my husband, John, in Iraq. I was supposed to be moving on with my life but it didn’t feel like I was. Not since the morning two Army officers knocked on my door.
I’d sold that house in West Virginia a month after John was killed, and moved here to Fort Lee, Virginia. I started an internship on the base, training to be a logistics specialist—the same kind of work that John had done in the Army. That was the plan we’d worked out together. He was going to retire when he got home and cheer me on in my new career. I’d just graduated from college. It seemed perfect, as if God was giving us the green light. If only.
There were so many days now that I just sat at this desk and sobbed. I could sense my coworkers turning away, not knowing what to say. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t care about logistics anymore, how to get parts to repair a Humvee or a Stryker. That had been John’s passion. It used to be mine too. We’d been a team for 23 years. I felt lost without him, coming home every night to an empty apartment.
All I could think about was that awful day. Those two soldiers standing at attention at my door at six-fifteen on a Monday morning. I sat across from them in the living room. “The secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret…” one of the soldiers, the notification officer, began. I couldn’t focus on what he was saying. My mind was racing. How had John died? Had he suffered? Who was with him? Were there any survivors? When would I be able to see him? What should I do first? John’s paycheck was our only income. How would I pay that month’s mortgage?
But they couldn’t tell me any of that. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not able to give you that information,” the officer repeated over and over again, as he was trained to do. They waited while I woke Nikki, my 20-year-old daughter. “Someone will be in touch with you within twenty-four hours,” the officer told us. Then they left. They seemed nervous, as if they’d been told not to stay any longer than needed.
That afternoon I got an e-mail telling me that John and another soldier had been killed by a roadside bomb that exploded near their Humvee. That was all the information I was given until my casualty-assistance officer, or CAO, showed up, a day late.
He couldn’t answer my questions either. His job was to help me plan John’s funeral. I chose to have it at Arlington National Cemetery, but I didn’t care about picking out John’s coffin or the order of the service. All I wanted to know was when I would be able to see John, to say goodbye.
“I’m sorry,” the CAO said. “That won’t be possible. His wounds—We just don’t think it’s something you’d want to see.”
Who was the Army to decide what was best for me? But there was nothing I could do. The day before the service, at a funeral home near the cemetery, the CAO ushered me to a softly lit room, to a chair beside a flag-draped coffin.
“Stay as long as you’d like,” he said.
I reached out and touched the coffin, hoping somehow I could feel my husband again. All I felt was its cool surface, indifferent to my touch. Indifferent, like the Army itself.
There had never been a time when the Army wasn’t part of our lives. That’s how I’d met John. We were both soldiers, stationed in Germany, working as mechanics. He stood out, a big bear of a man with red hair and a booming voice. So smart. Always patient, always kind. We hit it off right away. A year and a half later we were married.
I left the Army when I got pregnant with Pat, but there was never a question that John would stay on. He loved the military. He excelled at planning. Logistics. No matter the obstacle, everyone knew they could count on John.
He rose through the ranks to become a chief warrant officer. I was proud of him. I made it my mission to help him succeed. Encouraging him. Listening to his ideas, his frustrations. Helping him pack when he was deployed.
The way I saw it, I too was a logistics expert—for our family. Paying the bills, managing expenses, seeing to home repairs, helping the kids with their homework and getting them to school and church activities. That was my responsibility.
“You’re going to be great,” John told me the day I got my degree. He was in Iraq, but he watched me receive my diploma via an internet feed. That was the last time I heard his voice. The next day, he was killed.
I was numb at the service. Days later the CAO came to the house with stacks of forms to sign. He seemed frustrated by my questions. Things that were important to me—like whether I needed a new military ID—weren’t even on his radar. “You don’t need to worry about that right now,” he’d say.
Finally, determined to get some answers, I went to John’s base, Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. I spent three days there. I got information, but I had to ask all the questions. No one ever asked me what I was worried about or suggested that I go to counseling. There was no one to reassure me that I’d be able to get through this. No one, it seemed, had been given that assignment.
A month later I had come here, to Fort Lee, to this desk. There was no reason for me to stay in West Virginia. Nikki was leaving for college. We’d only moved to the state because John had been assigned to work as a liaison with a National Guard unit there.
I’d been so busy finishing my degree I had barely even met the neighbors. Maybe a change of scenery was what I needed. But my grief hadn’t left me. For the first time since John’s death, I went to church. God felt unreachable, remote, like the Army. I didn’t know what God wanted of me. To stop grieving? To move forward? How?
I tried going to counseling at Fort Lee. But it took weeks to get an appointment and I never seemed to be able to see the same therapist. Every time I went I had to tell my story all over again.
Now, on the phone, the woman from the Pentagon said, “We work with a group that presents medals to the children of soldiers who have been killed. Is there a day your family could come?”
I really wasn’t interested in a medal. But for Nikki and Pat—and John—I’d go. “I’d be honored,” I said. A few weeks later, Nikki and I went to the Pentagon. We got there early and I paced outside the conference room where Gen. George Casey, Jr., the Army chief of staff, would be making the presentation.
Pat would be given his medal in Iraq at the same time. I turned and… there was General Casey, his four stars staring out at me. “Oh, hi,” I said. “I mean sir. I mean—” I felt like a private again. I began nervously edging away from him.
“Donna,” he said, as though he’d known me forever. “How are you doing?” His voice held genuine concern, as if at that moment my welfare was the only thing that mattered to him. Was he for real?
I took a deep breath. I was never going to get another chance to talk to someone like this. And if he did care, and I told him the truth, then maybe things would change. “Sir, I’m okay,” I said. “But there are things about this process that have disappointed me.”
I told him everything, how no one seemed able to answer basic questions, how no one had ever talked to me about getting counseling, the difficulties I’d had getting an appointment. How I wasn’t sure what I even wanted out of life anymore. He listened intently, nodding, his eyes never leaving mine.
“You’re not the first family member to tell me this,” he said when I finished. “I’m forming an advisory panel to make recommendations we can act on.”
“Well, good luck with that,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too disappointed. When in doubt, form a committee. I turned to step away.
“I want you to be on the panel,” General Casey said.
I stopped. I wasn’t about to say no to a general, even as a civilian. In the months that followed, our committee talked with hundreds of people whose loved ones were killed in service to our nation. Hearing their stories I couldn’t help but feel angry all over again. Their frustrations and sorrow were burdens I knew all too well.
But more than that I felt a sense of purpose, a calling, even. This was an enormous challenge, one it felt as if my whole life had prepared me for. In part, it was about getting the right resources where they should be. This knowledge—the experience—that God had given me. He knew where I was needed all along.
Among the many changes our committee achieved was the creation of a new department within the Army called Survivor Outreach Services. SOS coordinators nationwide now work with surviving family members for as long as they’re needed, referring them to doctors and therapists, financial planners and life coaches who can help them begin to find a way forward.
I’m one of the program’s administrators. Our challenges are enormous. But in the end it comes down to logistics, doesn’t it? The logistics of the heart and of the soul.
What is the key to a happy life? I once spent several hours with one of the most infectiously happy gentlemen I have met in many a day. At the end of our time together I said, “One thing I would like to ask you before I leave. How did you get to be so happy?”
“Brother,” he replied, “if you could have seen me three or four years ago! I was the saddest, most negative, defeated individual you ever saw.” So what did he do? This discouraged man picked up the Bible and thought, “I wonder if there is anything in there for me?” He didn’t know anything about the Bible, had never read it. “But,” he says, “what else could I do? “
He had read somewhere that if you are up against it and you shut your eyes and open a Bible at random you will find a verse which is a message from God. Now that isn’t the best way to read the Bible. It isn’t very intelligent, it certainly isn’t very orderly, but if you can’t do it any other way then that way is a lot better than none.
The man took the Bible and opened it and with his eyes shut put his finger down on a page. When he looked, what he read was verse 19 of the 16th chapter of Matthew: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
“That startled me,” he said, “but it fascinated me. God would give me a key—keys, more than one. I said to myself, ‘What is the kingdom of heaven?’ I didn’t know, but I got to thinking about it and I figured that this must be the name for all of the most marvelous things in the world which God wants for His children—and which I didn’t have. There it was, locked away from me—and He was putting into my hands the keys of this kingdom, and if I would open it up I would find these things. That is what I made of it so I put the key in the lock and I opened the kingdom of heaven and all these blessings of love and faith and hope and greatness and cleanness poured out of the kingdom into me and I became a happy person.”
Looking for the key to a happy life? Here are some practical tips to help you live a happy life:
1. Happiness comes from knowing you can handle things. Become confident, and happiness will follow.
2. To be happy, find a human need and help fill it.
3. Be happy about your struggles. They can bring you untold satisfaction as you conquer them.
4. Take Jesus, the greatest giver of happiness the world has ever known, into your heart. His presence in your life will bring you joy and happiness.
PRAYER: Our Heavenly Father, help us to think the kind of thoughts that give us joy and that transmit joy. Help us to get in our hearts the love of Christ, that we may love people, so that they find joy.
We were out of ginger candies, ginger ale and ginger tea, and Evie had a stomach ache.
I did find some ground ginger left over from our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie recipe, but what good would that do? I sat down next to my tweener curled up on the sofa and saw the answer sitting right there on the coffee table.
I lit the tree and put on our Charlie Brown Christmas CD. “Let’s bake some Christmas cookies, sweetie. It will take your mind off your tummy.”
Lucky me that we’re featuring a soft, chewy gingersnap cookie recipe in “The Joy of Baking” section of Guideposts’ The Joys of Christmas 2014.
The simple ingredients were already in my kitchen cabinets, except for one-third cup of molasses, which my neighbor had in her fridge. That tummy ache didn’t stand a chance.
In no time, the house smelled warm and happy. Evie was smiling before the cookies had even cooled. Two for her, two for me, a tin for the neighbor across the way.
Thank you, Lavonne Caffey Zaiontz of Huntsville, Tennessee. Your No-Snap Gingersnaps saved the day and spread some Christmas joy.
No-Snap Gingersnap Cookies
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2½ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 scant cup of sugar, plus extra for rolling
¾ cup vegetable shortening
1 egg, beaten
⅓ cup molasses
Mix together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. In separate bowl, cream together sugar, shortening, egg and molasses. Slowly add dry mixture to cream mixture.
Roll quarter-sized balls of dough, then roll each ball in granulated sugar. Place balls about 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Do not flatten balls. Bake at 350°F for about 10 minutes. Leave them 1 to 2 minutes before removing. Makes about 60 cookies.
I have always found it so fitting that Grandpa Peale was born on May 31, a time of year when our natural surroundings are bursting with new blooms, lushness, new hope. It is also the time of graduations and celebrations of academic accomplishment, new beginnings, new experiences.
To me, Grandpa Peale’s ministry and mission were (and still are) infused with these same attributes. Through his writing and sermons, he showed us ways to see the goodness and beauty in ourselves, in others and in our surroundings.
He gave us guidance in finding hope during life’s stretches of hardship and bleakness (much like our Northeast winters). He offered ways to begin anew each day with God’s love surrounding us. He also encouraged us to allow an attitude of optimism to blanket us throughout our days, our junctures, our trials.
As I go on my jogs this time of year, I often think of Grandpa’s love of the freshness of late spring, of the sun’s warmth and of the scents of lilacs, peonies and honeysuckle. He deeply appreciated having a home in the country where he could be enveloped by these joyful sensations.
The Peale grandchildren were grateful to spend many of Grandpa Peale’s birthdays with him. He delighted in us and in our joy in a celebration. Not a May 31st goes by for me without a pause filled with gratitude for my Grandpa and for the love he shared with his family and with people the world round.
We seem to run a lot of stories about people dying. They leave us with glimpses of heaven, their final visions of loved ones or pets who await them, descriptions of escorting angels. I always feel uplifted after reading one of these stories, and the best ones make me think that my death will be an adventure, something to look forward to. Who wants to fear the inevitable?
Ninety-year-old Pat Miller of Hinsdale, Illinois, certainly doesn’t. I opened her letter today:
“After my father died,” Pat wrote, “my mother stayed with my younger sister for several busy, happy years. When her health changed she spent some loving, comfortable years with me, her nurse daughter. After she died, we waited till lovely weather and invited all her old friends to a luncheon. One dear old friend of the family, an elderly gentleman, seemed upset, as he’d just learned Mama had died on his birthday.
“‘But Uncle Mylan,’ I said, ‘going to heaven is one of the most wonderful things that can happen to you, and Mama chose your birthday to go!’
“Uncle Mylan was quiet. He was thinking.
“Later I heard his voice above the talkative group, as cheerful as could be. ‘And June chose my birthday to join her husband, Bill! I feel honored!”
Pat Miller knew her mom’s journey was one to be celebrated, and Uncle Mylan? Well, he went so far as to see it as a love story. How beautiful is that?
I pulled into my sister’s driveway and sat in the car, gathering my courage. I hadn’t been inside since the day of Danelle’s funeral, two weeks earlier. Her husband, Dave, had invited me to come help him go through her things, especially clothes and personal items.
Was I ready for this? Danelle and I had been close. She was four years younger than me. As a child, she followed me around and wrote notes telling me how much she loved me and looked up to me.
As seen in the June-July 2022
issue of Guideposts
Grown up, we lived an hour and a half away from each other and bonded over marriage, kids, work, faith and the horses that we both loved to ride.
Danelle had beaten ovarian cancer five years earlier. We’d called it a miracle. We assumed God would be there for her again when she was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 2019.
There was no second miracle. The cancer was painful, disfiguring and unstoppable. We prayed, rallied our friends and our church, even flew Danelle to Europe for an alternative treatment. She died anyway, suffering right up to the end.
From the car, I could see the Japanese maple in the front yard. Danelle had loved that tree, and I loved it too—especially in the fall, when the leaves turned crimson. It was fall now, but the changing colors didn’t cheer me. Instead, they felt like a prelude to loss.
I glanced at my phone before getting out of the car. Danelle’s last text to me was still there: “Where are you?”
I had been with my sister when she died, and she had stopped using her phone by then. The text was from an earlier period when she must have been looking for me. Her words expressed what I felt now—toward God.
Where were you?
Dave met me at the door. “Thanks for coming,” he said, wrapping me in a six-foot-four-inch bear hug.
I could tell Dave needed support, but I didn’t have much to give. To be honest, I wished I could have postponed today’s visit. Seeing Danelle’s things, reliving the memories… I could barely get out of bed most days.
“I’m happy to help,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’ll clear Danelle’s closets plus her dresser and her jewelry.”
“That would be great,” Dave said, obviously relieved. “I didn’t know what to do with all of those things. I have some of her books for you too. And her journals.”
Catherine (left) with her sister, Danelle
Like me, Danelle was a journaler. Ordinarily, I would have felt privileged to read her reflections about life. My sister was a restless thinker and a deeply faithful believer. She hated churchy platitudes and shallow prayers. Whatever she wrote was sure to be unsparing and revealing.
I couldn’t tell Dave, but those journals were the last things I felt ready to take right now. They were repositories of Danelle herself. I knew they would be full of painful details about her illness. Maybe even a confession of feeling abandoned by God, though she had never said such a thing out loud. Just seeing those journals would remind me of her spiritual suffering.
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Dave, seeming eager to get back to whatever he had been doing. I gathered my resolve and headed for the bedroom.
Danelle was the fashionista of the two of us. She lived in a suburb of Seattle, while I lived in the woods and, with my husband, Mark, ran a trucking business.
“You should wear more color, Cath,” my sister had often chided me, advice I’d never managed to take. I sorted her clothing into piles—keep, give to family or friends, donate—smiling a little at all of Danelle’s fancy outfits and accessories.
I paused over the classy suits that she had bought in preparation for opening her own accounting business. Danelle had gone back to school once her kids were older and, even during chemotherapy, had managed to pass her CPA exams.
I threw the suits in a box.
A pair of colorful cowboy hats reminded me of the last trip that she and I had taken together, a horseback riding tour of Yellowstone National Park. Danelle had bought a blue hat for me, pink for her. For one blissful week, we rode every day and camped at night under a canopy of stars.
Remembering that trip brought me up short. That was when I’d first learned about the return of Danelle’s cancer. We were talking outside our tent one evening when Danelle mentioned a sore inside her mouth that wouldn’t heal.
A few weeks later, doctors removed a part of her tongue.
The cancer spread fast. There were more operations to remove lymph nodes and a salivary gland. Chemotherapy. Powerful pain medications that drew a haze over her mind.
Then Covid hit. All of a sudden, my sister, my best friend, my confidante in faith and life, was on the other side of an impassable divide.
I had never prayed so hard. Family members, friends, coworkers, our church—everyone showered Danelle with love and support. I kept waiting for God to show up with a miracle healing. I was still waiting when Danelle took her last breath.
I filled the back of my SUV with boxes and clothes. On top, I gently laid Danelle’s long black wool coat, which she wore to concerts when she sang with a local choral society. She’d affixed a pin on the lapel engraved with the word Faith.
I gritted my teeth. I knew faith was “evidence of things unseen.” But all those fervent prayers had amounted to nothing on the day that Danelle had died in a hospice facility. I’d told her I loved her and felt her squeeze my hand. She’d stopped breathing a few minutes later.
“Don’t forget these,” Dave said, setting a box of books and a few journals on the back seat.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll hang on to them.”
Back home, I put the clothes and boxes of Danelle’s books in a spare room. I eyed the journals, afraid to read them. But it felt wrong to leave them here. I put them on my bedroom dresser, beside my own journal.
For weeks, I went through the motions, feeling numb. My dad was a pastor, and I have always had a strong faith. Danelle’s death didn’t make me doubt God was real; it did make me wonder whether I had misunderstood God.
I felt like Jesus’ disciples after he tells them he’s going to be crucified. By that point, most of his followers have abandoned him, realizing he wouldn’t be the conquering Messiah they’d expected.
“Are you leaving too?” Jesus asks the disciples.
“Where would we go?” they reply.
That was my question.
Early one morning, I reached for my journal on my dresser. I often write reflections during the predawn quiet. For some reason, my hand picked up one of Danelle’s journals instead, the one in which she had chronicled the last years of her life.
On the cover was an image of a tree and a line from Scripture: “I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see.”
I held the journal, turning those words over in my mind. I knew I should put the journal down and carry on with my quiet time. But I couldn’t.
I sat in my favorite chair and slowly pulled back the cover of the journal. “Okay, God,” I said. “I’ve tried to walk by faith, but now I need to see.”
I flipped to a page in the middle and braced for a pull-no-punches description of painful treatment or feelings of despair. Danelle never minced words.
“You are my everything, Lord,” Danelle wrote. “This year has made me know that you always show up for me.”
I looked at the date: September 2017. Exactly two years before her diagnosis, four years before she died. Well, she wasn’t sick then, so that didn’t count.
I flipped forward to the following year, landing on January 1: “I am so grateful I got to see this day dawn. A new beginning, like you promised. I look forward to what you hold in your hand for me because I trust you.”
I flipped further ahead to the day of her diagnosis. “It was a great and terrible day,” she wrote. Great? What was great about it? The rest of the entry was an honest accounting of her fears plus her determination to trust God through everything.
I turned to the next page. And the next. Eventually, the pain meds took hold, the entries petering out. Nowhere could I find a single line of anger or disappointment in God. Everything was gratitude and love.
I realized I was near the end of the book. The parts about her cancer were actually comparatively short.
I flipped back and read page after page of Danelle’s delight in life. There were her kids maturing and becoming independent adults. Her repeated attempts to pass the CPA exam and her final triumph. Fun vacations. Observations about life and people.
On nearly every page, there were declarations of her deep faith in God. Gratitude for his daily provision. Searching questions about a bit of Scripture or a theological issue raised by something Danelle had read.
Regret? Anger? Bitterness? None to be found.
This was a journal about life, not death. It was the record of a vibrant woman whose love for God was unconditional and kept her from getting stuck in negativity. Faith powered everything she did. She was at peace because she trusted her redeemer right up to the end.
Danelle was my younger sister, but here she was showing me the right way to live.
I’ll never stop missing Danelle. But I am no longer confused about who God is. After Danelle died, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways God didn’t show up. I was so focused on where God wasn’t that I lost sight of where he was.
Danelle knew. She wrote about it every day in her journal. She lived it during every one of her 45 never-a-dull-moment years of life.
Her spirit was still strong on that last day, when she squeezed my hand to say a final “I love you.” By that point, Danelle was ready to say goodbye.
On her grave, she asked for an inscription from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: “Now we, with unveiled faces, are being transformed.”
