Relentless: Inspiration for the Journey Towards Hope, Joy, and Purpose after Loss

By Heike Ingram

Is it possible for God to turn your crushing loss into spiritual growth and fruitfulness? Is it conceivable that one day new life will emerge from the incredible sadness and heaviness you feel?

In short, easy to read chapters, designed for those who are mourning the loss of a spouse, Heike shares her intimate story with vulnerability, raw emotion, and transparency before and after the death of her husband Ted. Her relentless pursuit to grieve well encourages readers to embrace courage, perseverance, and honesty in their individual journeys toward personal growth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Jan 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781486615568

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Acknowledgements

To the Three in One. You never cease to delight and astonish me with Your unexpected gifts and well-timed revelations. I love how You orchestrate divine encounters and fashion beauty out of brokenness. Your faithfulness and kindness throughout the entirety of my life has never failed. All I am and have, I owe to You.

To Gabe Voorhees, who had his ear inclined to the voice of the Father, and passed on a timely message of encouragement and direction when my self-confidence was at an all-time low. Thank you! Having Abba’s endorsement gave me the courage to step out and get moving.

To Evan Braun, my editor, and Sylvia St. Cyr, Tia Friesen, Jen Jandavs-Hedlin, and the talented team at Word Alive Press. Thank you for your expertise, direction, honesty, and enduring patience with me in developing this book into something that I pray will touch the lives of those who mourn.

To my now-in-heaven friends, Heather Voorhees and Sue Quyutinnuaq. Even in your suffering, you found a voice to bless, encourage, and share in my excitement.

To my friends Hilda Baer, Annette Fast, Elaine Burkholder, Chris Burkholder, Barb Chapman, and Faye Johnston for being my sounding board, calming my fears, sharing in my joys, and bringing sound counsel when I needed it most. I am beyond grateful.

To my parents, Gerhard and Lina Gross, and my beautiful daughters, Leah, Kara, and Shawna, who never stop believing in me. You are my biggest cheerleaders.

To my brothers and sisters in Christ at Fairview Alliance, who challenge me to walk the talk.

To the many who crossed my path and spoke a word of encouragement, your in-the-moment support brought bursts of light into my day. You are not forgotten.

Introduction

Several years following my husband’s death, I began to contemplate writing a book about my experience after loss. I surmised that I had some valuable things to share, and I wanted to inspire and motivate others. Over the years, I had written some devotionals for church family, penned some newspaper articles, and delivered a few sermons… but write a book? I doubted my competence. After every triumph in my journey with grief, the desire would resurrect, only to be promptly laid aside.

One day, everything changed. I was home alone when the phone rang. It was my friend Rick, encouraging me to watch the live-streaming of the one-hundred-year celebration of the Azuza Street revival in Los Angeles.

The next morning, a Sunday, I opened my laptop and began to watch. After the worship session, a man walked up on stage and had a number of prophetic words for people in the audience. I remember thinking, How amazing it would be to be called forward and given a word from God.

The following day at work, my cell phone rang and it was a friend, Gabe. I hadn’t spoken to him for several years. He told me that he had just come back from the Azuza Street celebration, and while there God had given him a word for me.

I listened with rapt attention. He proceeded to tell me a number of things that greatly encouraged me, but one thing in particular blew me away: God had told him that I was thinking about writing a book—and now was a good time to start. I hadn’t spoken to Gabe of this, so there was no way he could have known.

All of my fears and insecurities left me in that moment. Obviously, Father God had more confidence in me than I did in myself. I could now see that He had put that desire into my heart from the beginning.

Have you ever received news so astonishing and unbelievable that you just sit there with a stupefied look on your face as you try to process what’s just happened? That was me that day.

A Letter to Readers

Nothing prepared me for the relentless pain and sadness that came upon me like waves crashing onto an unfamiliar shore. Grief and pain showed up as unwelcome guests and made themselves at home, intruding into the very fabric of my existence. They didn’t leave quickly; they unpacked their bags, surprising and shocking me with unexpected and unwanted gifts. I was forced to accommodate them.

The very foundations of my life were shaken. The landscape that had become so familiar was suddenly, inexplicably altered. The future loomed before me, endlessly, and creation’s rich tapestry faded to a dull, lifeless hue. In time, I embraced them as friends. They were the road to healing my broken heart.

Grief is hard work. It’s challenging and surprising in its intensity. It’s complicated, knotty, and arduous. There is no easy path through it. No quick fix.

I was shoved mercilessly into its wake. It was my constant companion.

Yet there was hope, and with that in mind I write—to nudge you forward as you face days, weeks, months, and even years without your spouse.

It is my prayer, hope, and deepest longing that you, dear reader, will be inspired by the lessons I’ve learned, the insights that my Father in heaven has so graciously revealed to me, and the many choices I’ve made to be relentless in my quest to grieve well. May you be motivated and encouraged on your path toward a future filled with hope, purpose, and joy.

—Heike

When Letting Go Begins

~

I awoke to the even breathing of my husband beside me.

I awoke to my nightmare.

I awoke to exhaustion, and suddenly I was taken into a vision. I saw Ted standing on the shore of an ocean in the distance, and in my mind I heard a clear voice say, Soon he will be on a different shore.

Is that you, Father? I asked.

Yet I had no doubt. I take notice when Abba’s voice slices into my brain sideways, intruding into my thoughts.

That was the day I began to let go and release him. It was almost a month before Ted took his leave, a month of gut-wrenching and heart-breaking moments as I watched this man I’d shared life with, had children with, laughed with, and worked alongside waste away in front of those who loved him—a man who had once been able to lift a one-hundred-pound sheet of drywall over his head with one hand and screw it to the ceiling with the other.

I can’t say what’s worse—the shock of a sudden misfortune, like the time we lost our son-in-law Mike to a motor vehicle accident, or the slow and torturous decline of a loved one. On the one hand, we were grateful for the time we were given to say what needed to be said and minister love in the midst of suffering, yet the watching, the sitting, and the helplessness felt like a horrible price to pay for those precious moments.

Backdrop

~

On August 15, 1981, I stood facing my high school sweetheart and soon-to-be husband, Ted Ingram, in front of a church filled with supportive family and friends. The stained-glass windows cast a warm ambient glow over the moment. I still recall the feel of his hands in mine as I looked into his eyes and promised to love and honour him through the best and the worst, until death should separate us. The future waxed bright with hope. This was the man I would have children with, travel with, build a future with, make love with. It was the start of a new beginning, an answer to my prayers. My young and yet untried heart throbbed with anticipation. He was just twenty, and I twenty-two.

When love is in its infancy and your hopes are grand, when your plans for a lifetime together are new and your maturity untested, you don’t yet grasp the places life can and will take you. Cancer wasn’t part of our plans. Becoming a widow at fifty-four wasn’t either. We all know that death is likely, and so is the possibility of sickness, yet we believe and hope on some level that these misfortunes will happen to others, not us. And then, one day, it happens to you and your world takes a dramatic shift, leaving you reeling and ill-prepared.

You truly don’t know what you’re made of until a crisis hits and your world shifts on its axis.

Our first twenty years of marriage were pretty much bliss. We added three beautiful daughters, an acreage, some chickens, and a few cats to the mix. Like most families, we had problems to solve, messes to clean up, and foothills to climb, but nothing that shook our world—that is, until the first cancer diagnosis. Then I realized that bad things could happen to families like ours. My husband was forty-three when he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma—large B-cell, aggressive. Those foothills we were used to navigating suddenly became mountains, and there was no way around them