SOOTHING
GRIEVING PARENTS

Topics: Grief; Loss; Ministry; Mothers; Purpose; Sacrifice; Service; Teens; Tragedy; Witnessing

References: John 19:25–27; Romans 8:28; 1 Corinthians 15:58; 2 Corinthians 1:3–7; 9:6–15; Galatians 5:6

In 1992, Rosemary and Luther Smith of Beattyville, Kentucky, lost two sons in a car wreck.

Darkness like nothing she had ever known settled over Rosemary. Yet she found solace in her faith. While following the hearses to the burial site, she heard church bells toll thirty-three times. “As I sat there and counted, it hit me that when Jesus died he was thirty-three, which was also the combined ages of my sons.”

Not long after her loss, Rosemary began a ministry called Fellow Travelers, a ministry to other parents who have lost a child. “I now have a higher purpose than what I was doing, and the death of my sons took me there,” she says.

Every day, Rosemary reads the newspaper and searches the Internet for child obituaries. She either calls the families or sends them special packets consisting of books on loss, a music CD, a notebook of inspirational messages, and more. She gets about fifty emails a day from people requesting one of her packets. More than five thousand packets—paid for by Rosemary and her husband—have been sent all over the world.

“We are here to help other people,” said Rosemary. “It gives me great joy to think God is using me to help others.”

—Kara Bussabarger, “A Fellow Traveler,” Southeast Outlook (December 15, 2005)