New day

Hey all,

Happy New Year!! I hope 2015 is full of blessings for you all!

So what have I been up too… Well on the 23rd of December we finally got my book on Amazon. God is amazing and with His divine help, guidance and bringing all the right people along the book is a reality.

So here’s all the information for those of you who are interested in reading my story.

Now you can get the background story, and how her relationship with God, our Saviour, endured and was ultimately fortified in her book, Missing You, Finding Hope in Hardship.

For those of you who know Suz and knew Mark and her during the ten years of cancer and illness, this is the behind-the-scenes peek at what you possibly never knew was going on.

Suz has used her personal journal to write her story, Missing You. In which her prayer is that you will discover that God can be trusted to care for and protect you in your greatest battles and everyday.

MISSING YOU – Finding Hope in Hardship

Suz and Mark Holmes had been married ten happy years and had four little daughters when at 30 Mark was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.

Suz dodges no bullets in telling the story of the family’s next ten challenging years, holding tight on a traumatic roller coaster ride towards widowhood.

As one of the founding team for Houston-based Christian MXTV, and the subject of several faith-based TV documentaries, Suz and Mark’s story has already inspired many facing grief and loss.

In Missing You, like her soulmate Job, Suz looks her God full in the face and with rare honesty demands answers. She allows us to eavesdrop on an intimate exchange where pride and face-saving have no place.

What emerges is a redemptive story that denies Cancer the Last Word.

You can buy Missing You here

For those of you who do not have a Kindle, you can download an App for you device FREE here, follow the instructions on Amazon and you’ll be up and reading in no time.

photo credit: Freepik.com

December 3rd 2009 was the day my girls and I entered our most violent storm. A storm that lay hidden from the majority of the world around us. A storm that threatened to take us out, to destroy us as individuals and as a family. A storm like no other I have ever experienced but assuredly as long as I live on this earth I will face a similar but not identical storm again.

December 3rd 2009 – the day Mark, my husband of 20 years and father of our four beautiful daughters, died.

Five years ago today!

This past weekend my girls and I went away to the beautiful beach of Onemana.

Wonderful friends have a beach house there that sits on a slight hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It is one of my most favourite places in the world. I woke at 5.00am because one of my favourite things to do while I am there is watch the sunrise against the back drop of the endless ocean, and on Sunday morning it was a glorious. The world turned from the darkest of greys into the most splendid dark pink, then faded to light pink and blue, and then, just like that, it was a stunning new day.

As I sat on the comfy bean bag on the deck covered by my mum’s handmade wool blanket those three words reverberated in my mind and then down into my soul – A New Day!

A New Day!

After every storm there rises a new day. It cannot be stopped. The storm never lasts forever.

It is the same with grief – the damage caused by a storm of grief might remain and need fixing, but the fierceness and intensity of the grief does not endure forever.

There does come a new day.

And with that new day comes hope.

The same Psalm goes on to say:

My heart is confident in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises!

Wake up, my soul! Wake up, O harp and lyre!

I will waken the dawn with my song.

I will thank you, Lord, in front of all the people. I will sing your praises among the nations.

For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens. May your glory shine over all the earth.

Psalm 57:7-11

Today on the fifth anniversary of Marks death, with you, the readers of this blog as my witnesses, I want to give thanks to the Lord God Almighty. It is his protective wings in which I found shelter that has keep me safe through this storm. It is his love that has comforted me, and it is his faithfulness that has given me hope to believe that my girls and I will make it through.

I am truly confident that God will continue to be all that we need as we continue life. I am confident that God will never fail us or leave us, and I am confident that God will use this journey and experience for good.

I will waken the dawn with my song. I praise the Lord for New Days and I am confident in our New Day as a family because the Lord’s unfailing love and faithfulness never ever ends.

I will waken this New Day in my family’s life declaring to anyone who is listening or reading:

Thank you Jesus! Thank you for protecting us, loving us, comforting us and raising us up again to have hope for this New Day.

I praise and glorify the Lord God because he has truly and utterly done great things!