God-Given Gumption®

Best Advice

Our family standing in the spot where Taylor proposed (January 2013) in Ruidoso, NM.

When you go through loss; especially when it is a sudden death, especially when the person is young, especially when it is your husband, people simply just. don’t. know. what to say. There were lots of well meaning people who showed up at our house or Taylor’s service and exclaimed that they were just “dying” to get there and give me a hug. I would stare blankly back at them with my bloodshot eyes and bite my tongue as I thought to myself “Really?? the only person who was actually DYING here was my husband.”

There were also countless acquaintances who reached out only to say how shocked they were to hear the news. This was another comment I just didn’t know what to do with. Am I supposed to comfort you here? Oh, I’m so sorry to hear how shocked and heartbroken YOU are. When you are grieving and looking for something to get angry about, the ill spoken comforters can easily become collateral damage. However, letting someone else’s words fester in your brain that already has too much real stuff to worry about only hurts yourself. We are not designed to carry the weight of hurt caused by others (or imagined to be) which is why God tells us to forgive.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Ephesians 4:32

After the funeral, I received a lot of books on loss and grief that I devoured when I didn’t know what else to do with my time. Some were hard to take seriously when they talked about different kinds of struggles in life. Other people’s problems all had possible solutions and the only solution to my loss is accepting that I will never see Taylor again this side of heaven. Other writers took a negative, woe is me tone that I didn’t appreciate. If you knew my husband, then you know that Taylor Marley didn’t marry a victim.

Baker Publishing
Note: This is not a paid affiliate-Just sharing a book I appreciated

One of the most helpful books I received was given to me by one of our pastors, Sean Lee. Grieving With Hope is full of so much useful advice and biblical application and has been a great source of comfort for me. It has one chapter on Dealing with Insensitive Comforters. There is a line in this chapter that seems so obvious, but I think I needed to see in black and white type to realize its truth…“Few people sit around thinking of ways to offend grieving people.” (pg.62)

It is actually laughable when you think about this. I know that nobody bought a plane ticket or hopped in their car and drove hours out to the ranch spending their travel time wondering, “When I get there, what can I say to Molly that would really exacerbate her heartbreak?” People simply just don’t know what to say so they risk putting their foot in their mouth or don’t say anything at all (even more hurtful). This is true in a lot of our interactions with each other. We are not always great at communicating and this becomes worse the more ways there are to communicate with each other. We are called to be patient and gentle with each other (Ephesians 4:2). I know I would want the same grace granted to me when someone doesn’t understand my intentions or my tongue doesn’t articulate well what is really on my heart. Be kind to one another and withhold judgement-only God knows the hearts and minds of someone else. Simple advice, but it was something I simply needed to hear to accept the love and true intentions of my comforters.

Love, Molly

He Bought the Trip Insurance

Taylor (third from left) with friends on a sandhill crane hunt in Lubbock, TX

This past week was a little weird for me when I flipped through my planner for the first time in a while. I normally carry my planner with me everywhere, taking great care each January to pick out the perfect one for the new year and getting way too excited about it in the office supply aisle at Target. With no plans during quarantine and no reason to write anything down, I was a little shocked to realize it was already the last week of May.

The week before Taylor’s accident he was on a trip with his dad, Mark. They went to San Antonio, Texas for a cattle convention and were blessed with some precious time together. When Taylor got home that weekend he was eager to tell me about the convention and a bachelor trip some of his friends were planning to Costa Rica over Memorial Day Weekend. I’m thankful I was a “cool” wife about the trip and fully supportive of him going. Taylor valued friendships more than anyone else I’ve ever known. He loved all people, and he really loved good people. He saw opportunities like the Costa Rica trip as an investment in his friendships, valuing time he got to spend with good friends above most other things in this world.

Sunday evening Taylor helped put our girls to bed. After reading them books and tucking them in, not knowing it would be the last time, he booked his flight to Costa Rica. He mentioned to me that he also went ahead and bought the trip insurance. I was really surprised by this and he just brushed it off. If you knew Taylor, this fact would be shocking to you too. We sat in his office the rest of the evening talking and just being together while he looked up stuff about Costa Rica. I pulled his passport out of the safe to double check the expiration and we talked about what he might need to pack for the trip. I am confident God already knew that night that Taylor would never make it to Costa Rica.

“Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money,’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.'”
James 4:13-15

As I look at my planner and realize that I should have been unpacking Taylor’s bag last week, probably filled with sand, and doing the laundry from his trip, I am baffled at my reality. His bag from San Antonio is still on the floor in our bedroom. I’ve rifled through it and held his worn shirts against my face, but I haven’t brought myself to unpack it just yet. I think about the trip insurance a lot and see it as a gift from God who put it on my husband’s heart to purchase. A gift to a wife who tends to over analyze and has a desperate need to approach everything with logic. That trip insurance is a gift that constantly reminds me there was never supposed to be another bag to unpack. It is a gift that tells me God has another plan for Taylor and it is all going to be OK (even when it really sucks right now).

God never promised that life would be easy, but he did promise to never forsake us. When you are going through a hard time, even if it seems trivial in comparison to real world problems, look for the gifts. Look for all the ways God is letting you know that he is right there with you. The only thing we are assured of in this world is what is promised to us in the bible. When the time comes for all of us to embark on our final trip, the insurance has already been paid for with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Have you ensured that you will arrive at your final destination by accepting that insurance?

Love, Molly

Answering the Call

View from our house of the ranch headquarters.

In the days following Taylor’s service I had no idea how to act or what to do with myself. My desire to keep my girls on their routine as best I could would keep me going until their bedtime at 7. After that I would read books on grief or write until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Those first days were so raw and I felt like a zombie going through the motions of our normal schedule even though nothing was normal anymore.

Looking back, I think one of the best decisions I made was to push myself to carry on with our normal routine. Taylor’s service was on a Saturday at our church and at my request our family attended Sunday’s service the following morning. We cried through most of it and I noticed there were some unfamiliar faces in our section that must have had no idea what they were in for when they chose those seats. The following Sunday I sat in church and was so thankful I had “ripped off the band aid” and gotten myself through the sanctuary doors the week before.

There were a lot of places that first week that I made myself go back through the doors of, leaning on precious friends for support. This was an especially important step and probably saved me from life as a hermit considering we were quarantined a little over a month after Taylor’s passing (more on that in another post). I used to be a member of a Wednesday morning women’s bible study in town (CBS), but left in January 2018 when a great job offer came along to go back to teaching art part time. The new job conflicted with the study and was my only con for going back to work. Most of my friends that were home with young kids still participated and I knew it was where I needed to be in my season of loss, immersed in the scriptures with my sisters in Christ.

My friend, Emily, served as the class coordinator and put me in a small group with two of our other friends, Brittany and Jalene. That first day back I brought my sister in law, Kate, with me and we met Brittany and Jalene in the parking lot of the church. We waited in the pickup together with our Starbucks and walked in after the other women would already be settled into their groups-I wanted to avoid the hugs and pity looks.

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:58

My favorite thing about studying the bible is that it truly is a living scripture. Often the answers just jump out at you no matter what your are going through in your life. Kate and I jumped in with the group studying 1 Corinthians chapter 15 (the whole study covered 1 and 2 Corinthians). What a perfect time to be reaffirmed with the truth of the resurrection and the salvation of all Christians! What a perfect time be reminded that the victory over death has been won!

Not long into my Corinthians study, I felt as if Paul was speaking directly to me through the Holy Spirit about using my God given gifts. There were over 800 people at Taylor’s service who heard his testimony of faith. What a gift! It became clear to me that I was being called to write about my own faith and continue ministering through Taylor’s life and death. God’s work with Taylor in this life is finished and I am answering His call to continue sharing our faith. I hope you will subscribe and follow along with me.

Love, Molly