A few weeks ago I was invited to a women’s group to support my dear friend who was planning to speak that evening. I knew her topic. I knew the facts. But I left that night with a deeper understanding of my girlfriend, of her pain, of her strength and of her faith. My faith was built up as she shared hers.

Kendra and I first met when we were volunteers at Vacation Bible School one summer when our two churches were co-hosting the VBS. Her husband was the youth pastor at their church. She and I were volunteers in the craft area. In chit chatting we realized we had a lot of mutual acquaintances and we were both moms of twins which creates an instant bond of “she gets me.”

Not too many years later, at the age of 34, her husband was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer, a very rare diagnosis for a man of his age. From the moment he was diagnosed until he passed away ten months later they never received one word of good news from their doctors. No procedures or medications worked. They never had a glimmer of hope in the natural. But God.

God was ever-present in that season. She cried out to Him, she pleaded with Him and understandably she questioned Him. Ultimately, as she had done so many times in the past years when the ups and downs of life made no sense and “her plans” were thwarted repeatedly but God kept showing up and showing her the goodness of “His plan,” she trusted in Him.

Not that any of the previous times had been easy (relocating them out of state; taking her away from her family when she had three babies under two years of age; a life in ministry) but this time she was forced to blindly trust when there seemed to be no hope. She had to draw on all those experiences in the past where God had built up her faith and trust in Him. Fortunately, she had walked with God her whole life and had gone round and round with Him in the past. Her testimony was of having a plan for her own life when God showed up and turned it upside down. He had taught her that His ways were higher than her ways but also that He would never leave her nor forsake her.

In this season she pleaded with God to do what only He could. To heal her husband when the doctors couldn’t. To save her young children’s daddy to spare them the heartache and grief they would undoubtedly have to bear for a lifetime. She knew the God who had parted the Red Sea. She knew the God who tells us if we have the faith of a mustard seed He can move mountains for us. She had been a “good girl,” she had done the “right things.” She was prepared for a testimony of healing. She was ready to share that her husband was among the 5% of survivors of that dreadful disease. Sadly, with his wife by his side, her 35-year-old husband lost his battle with cancer.

Why God? You are sovereign. You are all powerful. You could’ve saved His life. She believed that to her core. Who could ever explain such anguish and grief and reconcile them with a loving God? Yet at the end of the story, she trusted God. That is what He taught her time after time in the past. He had built up her faith muscle and entrenched that testimony deep in her heart for this time.

At the end of her talk she played a song by Lauren Daigle. The words spoke exactly to her circumstances. They paralleled her life:

When You don’t move the mountains I’m needing You to move

When You don’t part the waters I wish I could walk through

When You don’t give the answers as I cry out to You

I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You!

Even though I knew my friend’s story, I sat and listened that evening and silently sobbed. For the heartache she endured. For the grief of her children. For the pain her entire family experienced. I also sobbed because I knew the rest of the story. I knew that God had redeemed her. Her loss was excruciating, but He bore it with her.

And then He did something exquisite and beautiful. He brought a man into her life to give her and her children a new chance at love. Together they had a fresh hope for life.  They created a different family than the one she and her kids had foreseen, but it was special. There was new love in her life in this man. She became a wife again and expanded her heart to embrace a new daughter, a new sister for her children.

I have been absolutely blessed to watch this new season of her life unfold. Her new husband is my husband’s best friend from high school. We walked side by side with them as they dated and we were there to witness the blending of their two families in marriage. In fact, my husband was honored to perform their wedding ceremony. My big, tough, strong husband struggled that day to keep the tears in check and the cracking from his voice as he performed the sacred ritual of marriage. He knew both of their stories. He knew her loss. He knew the heartache their family had come through. But he knew, as did everyone gathered that day, that this marriage was God’s plan. This new love was God’s redemption. This relationship resulted all because Kendra remained firm in the testimony of her life. She trusted in God. And He did not forsake her.