Many Firsts

​Fifty-four days. My precious daughter, Hannah, has been gone for fifty-four days. She chose to take her own life. There, I said it. It’s out there now, crashing like a tsunami through every minute, every day of my life and every thought. What a horrific fifty-four days it has been.


We never saw it coming. She was so happy when she dropped us off at the airport. There were no signs. Why? How? I keep hoping to wake up from the longest, most excruciating nightmare ever. But I won’t. We won’t. Not me, not my husband Bryan, not my daughter Haley, not her grandparents, or Morgan, the man she was going to marry.


Everyone has told me that every “first” will be almost unbearable, and it’s true. Right after her death, we celebrated her birthday with Morgan and without her for the first time. We chose to go to her favorite restaurant—that had been her request. I had to go to the restroom and completely break down just to get through it. A couple of weeks later, I celebrated Mother’s Day without her. I cried the whole day.


She’s everywhere—in every song, in pictures in our home and on our phones. She’s in every store, sitting on every shelf, hanging on every clothing rack, and all through the grocery section. I see things I know she would have liked, clothing that I would have bought for her if she were still here. (We had the same taste in clothing.) And all of her favorite foods.


I walk into her bedroom, and everything is just like she left it, but now smothered in artificial flower arrangements and gifts from the funeral. I go in there just to try to smell her scent again.


I know this is probably depressing, so I’m going to move along. Besides, there’s no amount of words that could adequately express the pain of losing our 22 year old daughter. At times, it feels completely unbearable.


Satan has been taunting me. He whispers the most vile, upsetting, and heartbreaking words to me. He tries to convince me that Hannah didn’t make it to heaven and that I will never see her again. And even though God has spoken to me many times and confirmed to me that she’s with Him, the enemy still rages on, nagging at me constantly.


But that’s not all. He tells me I will never minister again. He has said the overwhelming grief will not allow me to open my mouth without weeping uncontrollably. He’s said the anointing has lifted off me, and even if I could utter a word, it just won’t be the same—fruitless, meaningless, powerless. He says everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same.


Everything has changed. Nothing is the same without Hannah. Well, almost everything. One thing has remained the same, and that is my faith in God. I do not understand and cannot begin to comprehend His ways, but I know His thoughts and ways are higher than mine. (Isaiah 55:8–9) Along with that, my calling has not changed. In fact, I have felt like a fish out of water these last fifty-four days because I haven’t been ministering at all.


Bryan and several friends have encouraged me to go back, at least to the jail/prisons, just to see how I feel about it. Others have told me, “You may never minister again!” It was hard not to rebuke them on the spot. But I have wondered: Will I be able to minister again, ever?


Last week, I made up my mind. I decided I would go back to the jail to speak to the women the next Tuesday night. That was last night, May 26, 2026. Even if I became a basket case and bawled like a baby in front of them, they would still just be glad to see me—hopefully.


All day yesterday, I was a nervous wreck. I had no idea what to expect. It felt like it had been a year since I ministered, though it had just been shy of two months. I started questioning God: “Am I supposed to do this? Is it too soon? Am I just feeling pressured to go back? Do I need to wait? What do YOU want me to do?” He’s been getting a lot of questions from me lately.


I have many devotionals I read on a daily basis during my Bible study time, and I’ve added a few more since losing Hannah. Let me just say, God is definitely closer to us in our pain. The Holy Spirit has been a comfort to me in moments when I felt I couldn’t take another step.


But as I was reading those devotionals, three of them said, “Do not be afraid. Be courageous. I will be with you.” Coincidence? The others all said things like the Holy Spirit will go before you and prepare the way. Every word I read was leading me to believe God was telling me to go for it.


Then I opened my Bible and looked down to see what chapter it had opened to. It wasn’t highlighted, but it jumped right off the page at me:
Romans 10:14 — “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”


I am an evangelist. My greatest desire is to lead people to Jesus. It is hardwired into my very being. This is who God created me to be. This was the assignment I was given. There’s not a day that passes that I don’t feel the desire to tell someone about the hope we have in Jesus. I was definitely going to jail!


It was another first. I realized I had not even driven anywhere since Hannah died. I knew I hadn’t forgotten how to drive, but I was still nervous. This was the first time I had been to the jail since her death, the first time I had spoken in a ministry setting since then. And I was scared to death.


As I drove to the jail, I began to pray in the Spirit, and when I pulled into the parking lot, I had perfect peace. The nervousness was gone, but now there was excitement in its place. What would God do tonight?


While I was hooking up the laptop to the projector, the ladies came in. New ladies. A few had been there before, but many were new. They began to ask me how I was doing, and I tried to say, “I’m okay,” but the tears came, and I began to cry. Oh no! Maybe it was too soon!


They came up and hugged me, and I was able to tell them what happened. We started the worship service. I had chosen upbeat songs—new songs that I had never heard Hannah sing. Then I grabbed my notes to begin my message. But soon, I laid the notes back on the table and just spoke.


I felt like I was all over the place, and parts were really sad, but I knew the Holy Spirit was speaking through me. I asked them, “What happens to your faith when the unthinkable happens?” Soon after, I closed and gave the altar call. I’m thrilled to say that five out of eight ladies raised their hands to give their lives to Jesus!


Then I opened the altars for prayer. Another first—I hadn’t laid hands on anyone and prayed for them since before Hannah’s death. Would I even be able to mutter a word to pray for them? But I did, and four of those five ladies were baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and three fell to the floor under the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.


What a night! I left on cloud nine. The night was therapeutic for me. I don’t know who ministered more. Those ladies loved on me and cried with me, hugged me and comforted me. And most importantly, the Holy Spirit empowered me to do what I could not do on my own.


I told the ladies I might not be there every week. Grief is so unpredictable. Some days are better than others. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed. It will be a slow return to fulltime weekly prison ministry. But now I know Satan is definitely a liar, the father of all lies. God has promised to never leave us or forsake us, and He never will.


I was talking to Kay Warren. She and her husband, Pastor Rick Warren, lost their son Matthew to suicide on April 5th of 2013. As we were talking about ministry from this point on, she told me to write this down: “When you can, you will, and when you can’t, you won’t.” I’m seeing how true that is, and God is not upset with us in either case.