“Teri, I felt like I should make you a yellow one.” My friend Lindsey recently gifted me one of her gorgeous rosary bracelets.
“Would you design one for Michelle Moore the founder of Mother’s Grace, a non-profit that helps mothers in the midst of life emergencies? I haven’t met her personally, but we have mutual friends and she loves the Rosary, too.”
On a literal leap of faith, I reached out to Michelle through social media inviting her to join me for Rosary, Mass, and coffee so I could give her Lindsey’s rosary. When we met, Michelle gave me her newly published book ‘A Mother’s Grace’. I eagerly anticipated reading the courageous stories gathered in her book, knowing some stories came from friends.
In the introduction, Michelle shares how she identified with the color yellow as a sign of hope while struggling through cancer.
A yellow sunflower adorns the cover of her book symbolizing longevity, vitality and happiness. The words that grace the pages of this book share miracles of hope from fierce women in times of darkness. The promptings in Lindsey’s and my heart through the rosary became clear.
Overflowing conversation filled the short time Michelle and I spent together, and I meant to share the testimony ‘Faith Understood’ written by my friend Paul Zucarelli with her that morning. My husband and I met Paul and his wife Beth during a retreat with the Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit. Paul shared his testimony of miraculously surviving multiple cardiac arrests days after his routine heart surgery at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. I said to Paul, “So many miracles happen at Mayo. Your story sounds just like a young man we know who survived limb amputation from necrotizing fasciitis, Kainoa Spencer.” “We know Kainoa,” Paul replied. “Beth and Jennifer, Kainoa’s mom, prayed together in the ER. When I was healed, I prayed over Kainoa’s room with my Crucifix that Beth gave me.”
Jennifer share’s her story in ‘A Mother’s Grace’. While their stories never intertwine in the books, Paul and Jennifer both share experiences of light and the powerful prayer warriors. The similarities in these stories are no coincidences. I am blessed to witness the Holy Spirit work through the lives of these beautiful people I now call my friends.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful…”(Hebrews 10:23).
