Author: Paula Freeman
Located in: Leawood
Submitted: September 28, 2022
Tell us a little about yourself. Paula Freeman writes with candor and grace about what happens when life hijacks our plans and shatters our dreams. She inspires grace for the hard stuff and hope for the journey.
As the founder and former Executive Director of Hope's Promise, a Colorado licensed adoption agency and international orphan care ministry, Paula wrote A Place I Didn't Belong: Hope for Adoptive Moms. It's an invitation to emotional healing and spiritual renewal for moms with kids from hard places; we can be okay when our children are not. Her memoir, Learning to Be Me Without You: A Story of Love, Loss, and Coming Home chronicles a diagnosis, one last adventure, a crisis of faith that erupts on the threshold of death, and the wonder of discovering the presence of God in the wilderness of widowhood. It's a book for those who grieve.
Widowed with seven grown children, Paula lives in Kansas City but still calls Colorado home. She loves road trips, oldies music, coffee with friends, and she gets to the beach as often as she can. Visit her at paulasfreeman.com or email her at paulasfreeman@gmail.com.
What was your motivation behind this project? I want to help comfort those who grieve. And words offer language, validation, and hope. They also bear witness to the goodness of God, even in our darkest times. This book began with my need to unpack how the presence of God met me in unprecedented ways after my husband died, and I fell in love with a gentler and kinder Jesus. I have journaled for most of my life. So, when Ray was diagnosed with a terminal disease for which there was no cure or effective treatment, I began to write. I journaled through his illness, our move to the beach where he could breathe better at sea level, his last hospitalization and death, and then, through my first year of widowhood. I wanted to record my experience in real time: the events, the pain, the questions, the graces, and the healing because I knew I would not remember it accurately.
And I sensed a sustained movement of the Holy Spirit to "Write, therefore, what you have seen"(Rev. 1: 19). This verse offered perspective from which to write and guided my internal conversation: Write what you have seen. Don't preach. Don't compare. Don't worry about what others might think. Go ahead and name the hard stuff. Just tell the story of what Jesus did for you. And when I did, I realized I had wrestled down my two biggest fears: that I could not survive the grief of my husband's death, and that God would not be enough. The next right answer was writing Learning to Be Me Without You. I think many widows grapple with these same fears. I want to inspire hope for their journey.
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? My prayer throughout the writing of this book has been Lord, help me show the essence of how you have worked in my life, so others might see You in theirs. I hope my story will be a vehicle to carry people into their own stories; that they will gain language for their journey; and that they will be inspired to say "Yes!" to Jesus's invitation to follow Him on a further journey, whatever that next step may be.
How were you personally impacted by working on this project? As I lived within the boundary of these words while writing this book, crafting them, then reworking them before the Lord to accurately portray the transforming work He did in my heart during my nineteen-month long season by the sea, God continued to reveal ways He had been watching over my life for decades. I loved Him more with each insight; trust deepened as He showed me over and over again that yes, He would be enough, even in the wilderness of widowhood.
Who are your influences, sources of inspiration or favorite authors / artists? I read a lot during the early months of grief, searching for hope, language, and a vision for my life beyond the immediate pain. The following books served as companions and mentors to me along the way:
- Praying Our Goodbyes by Joyce Rupp
- A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser
- Gift of the Red Bird by Paula D’Arcy
- Sensible Shoes by Sharon Garlough Brown
Anything else you'd like readers / listeners to know: I love to hear from readers! Shoot me an email at paulasfreeman@gmail.com, or join my email list at paulasfreeman.com. Blessings!
