Episode 30: THE SULLIVAN'S STORY PART 2: Faith and trust in God's plan during uncertain times with Brady Sullivan

This week we're continuing our mini-series on The Stories Collective in sharing Part 2 of The Sullivan's story. We left off last week with Jenny in Texas grieving the death of her husband Brad and trying to find a new normal. Meanwhile across the world. Brady Sullivan and his wife Sara were on a similar journey while being stationed in Northern Japan with the Air Force. Brady and Sara had been married for close to 5 years when they felt the desire to start a family. In January of 2009 Sara found a lump on her left breast. In the midst of all the tests and procedures to find out what was going on Sara found out that she was pregnant. In the joy of that discovery the doctors delivered devastating news within weeks - Sara had breast cancer. The next 9 months would be filled with so many visits to the doctor relating to the pregnancy and the cancer. Brady and Sara eventually came back to their home state of Texas to be close to family while going through the chemo treatments and waiting for the delivery of their baby girl Chloe. Brady and Sara began blogging their journey to keep friends and family updated on everything that was going on. Their blog went semi-viral and people from all over the world were praying for Brady, Sara and baby Chloe. We've linked their blog below and have also linked specific posts that Brady mentions in this interview. 

In September of 2009, 7 weeks before her due date, Sara went into labor. After an emergency C-Section and time in the NICU Brady, Sara and Chloe were going home. The plan was that Sara would finish her chemo treatments and all of this would be behind them. But as we know, sometimes the Lord has plans that are far beyond anything we can comprehend. While all of this was happening, Jenny had been made aware of the blog that Brady and Sara were writing, and she began to pray. You'll have to join us next week for Part 3 as we share what happened next...

Join us on Wednesday, September 28th for Part 3! That will be the final episode in this mini-series. Would you please subscribe and leave us a review? This will help our podcast reach more people! We'd love it if you'd share this podcast with your friends on social media and beyond. 

A note from Brady - The blog started as a way to keep family and friends updated (instead of sending bulk emails) and became a platform to share Christ from. It was extremely therapeutic to get thoughts out of my head and onto paper. Seeing the positive impact that our journey was having on others faith journeys was very helpful during the grief process. It was amazing to see the power of social media and the rapid spread of Sara’s story when her health took a turn for the worse after Chloe’s birth.

Check out Brady and Sara's blog - https://bandssullivan.blogspot.com

Here are some of the posts that Brady referenced but didn’t read while recording due to time constraints:
 
Soon after Sara’s passing, Brady had the overwhelming feeling that he was being blanketed by “The Peace of God” - https://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/search?q=cushion
Refiner’s Fire - http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/2009/10/refiners-fire.html

The Darker the Night - http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/2010/01/darker-night.html (about seeing God’s glory during the darkest portions of life)
Reflections on Prayer - http://bandssullivan.blogspot.com/2010/01/sullivans-by-willow-tree-collection.html