Good evening, as Spring mentioned my name is Kari and my Hem Touching Moment was a little over a year ago when my whole entire life began to fall apart. My fiancé Aaron and I had moved into our new home on February 1, 2024. We celebrated one year of being together on August 1, and then on August 20 we found out that he had stage 4 lung cancer. The next few months were such a blur as he eventually was placed on hospice care on September 11, and then passed away in our home on October 4, which was also my son’s 3rdbirthday.
Aaron had been not feeling well since July, so with him being out of work for so long, I knew that I was not able to keep the home, and that I would need to rehome all of our pets. I began looking for apartments and was hopeful about one that was in my budget. I was very open with the landlord about my situation and why my credit was bad, he said he would work with me but chose to change his mind at the last minute.
I then contacted Love INC, I knew that they had helped a friend of mine 20 years ago with transitional housing. This in itself is a God moment to me because who knew all those years ago that Love Inc would be such a big part of my life and spiritual growth (of course God knew). My first mentor Karen, who is here tonight, will be able to confirm that it probably took about 2-3 month for me to be able to speak without breaking down.
I was set to begin the life skills program on January 2 of this year and that is the day that I found out the company I worked for had restructured and I no longer had a job after working at the same company for 13 years.
I am sure you can imagine that I was truly feeling like Job, I had lost my fiancé, my home, our pets, and my job all within a span of a few months. I had so many thoughts and emotions. I was angry. I was sad. I was anxious and worried for my future as a now widow, and unemployed single mom-on the verge of being homeless. I questioned God, why would He even allow Aaron and I to get together and purchase a home just for it to be taken away so soon? Was it punishment? And I am guessing some of you may have began to compare yourself to other people who may not be as nice as you are or as generous as you are and thought that it was no fair these people were living happy and blessed lives while you are in the middle of such loss and suffering. I even at one point wondered if God loved Aaron more than me because Aaron was in heaven and I was the one down here left broken and trying to pick up the pieces.
I am here to tell you though, that through it all God showed Himself. And even though I was upset I would pray and cry out to Him, some of my prayers were just sobs. I spent a lot of time in worship which I had never really done outside of church, I would sit in the woods and put on youtube and the perfect song that I had never heard would come on, I would tell God that I couldn’t feel Him, and ask Him to give me a sign. Sometimes the wind would pick up, a butterfly would land near by or a ray of sun would suddenly shine on my face, and those were moments that I would grasp on to and be thankful for that He was indeed listening.
I prayed. I trusted. I hoped that even though the days and minutes even seemed so heavy and dark and lonely that God would show me HIS faithfulness. HE had done it in the past so I knew He was able. I remembered all of the lessons and illustrations that I had heard about being refined by fire, and that even gold has to be purified. I felt peace even through the heaviness that God was purifying and refining me.
Every step of the way, HE did provide. He put people, and resources in my path so that my son and I would be taken care of.
2 Corinthians 1:8–9
8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers,1 of mthe affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us nrely not on ourselves obut on God pwho raises the dead.
“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord…”
..: Jeremiah 30:17
Zechariah 13:9
English Standard Version
9 And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”
Hem Touching Moments 
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