Nancy Guthrie

Through a series of pretty amazing events, I had the absolute blessing of coming into contact with Nancy Guthrie. I received one of her books randomly in the mail from a former student's mother. She had begun to read the intro to the devotional and learned that Nancy had two babies who suffered from Zellweger Syndrome, the same thing Lydia has. A few days after I got the book, we brought Lydia home from the hospital and Nancy (having been contacted by someone we know) commented on our blog.

After several weeks of having Lydia home and after one particularly difficult week, I finally got up the nerve to call her. She was going to be the first woman I spoke to who had lost a baby to ZS and I was excited and nervous for what she would say. It was an incredible phone call. She told me about her sweet babies, Hope and Gabriel and how she dealt with their lives, how she went on everyday knowing they would die, how she dealt with friends who had babies the same age as hers.

She told me that how I grieve when Lydia goes to be with Jesus is a choice I get to make. I could allow myself to feel connected to her only through my grief, or I could choose to celebrate life to honor her memory.

She told me that losing Lydia will be the most painful thing I will ever experience and will hurt me more deeply than anything ever has. But it will not hurt that bad forever.

She told me that the miracle of this story isn't going to be that God heals Lydia. The miracle is that, after she is gone, He will heal me.

She gave me so much to think about, but more importantly, she gave me hope that when Lydia goes to heaven, it will not be the end of my life.

Since talking to her, I've read two of her books (Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow and Holding On To Hope), which I would recommend to anyone who is dealing with some kind of suffering in their life.

Knowing that many people in our community are going through significantly difficult times and suffering through things they do not understand, our bishop then reached out to Nancy to see if she would be interested in coming and speaking in Connecticut. Excitingly enough, she said YES!

Here is a video of Nancy explaining what the seminar will be all about. At the end of the clip, there is a slide with all of the info that you need, should you want to attend. Hope you'll consider it. The time is being covered in prayer and we are trust that God will bless the time.