June 29, 2025 • 38 mins
In this deeply moving episode, Jacke Rose shares the heartbreaking story of January 15, 2016, when her life changed forever. What began as an ordinary evening with family quickly turned into an unimaginable nightmare when her son Randy, a gentle and godly man, committed a violent act against his own family before taking his own life. Jacke walks us through the horrific phone calls, the rush to the hospital, and the moment she realized her worst fear as a mother had come true.
But this isn't just a story of tragedy—it's a testament to the power of hope and healing. After caring for traumatized grandchildren and processing her own complex grief, Jacke founded Grieving Moms Finding Hope, a ministry that has transformed the lives of mothers worldwide. Through her 12-week study program and retreats, she guides women from the darkest corners of despair to places of joy, laughter, and purpose. Jacke's story proves that even after life's most devastating landslides, it's possible to not just survive, but to help others find light in their darkness.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
Do you want to hear more stories filled with hope and inspiration?
Dozens more Bleeding Daylight episodes are waiting for you at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:34):
Today's topic is a difficult one that covers deep grief and the hope that can still shine through.
If anything in this episode raises troubling thoughts or feelings, please reach out for support.
You're not alone.
Talk to someone you trust, contact your local church or a mental health professional.
(00:54):
Help is available.
Today I have the privilege of sitting down with Jacke Rose, the founder of Grieving Mums Finding Hope.
After experiencing unimaginable loss in 2016, Jacke transformed her personal tragedy into a powerful mission of support and healing.
(01:20):
Through her 12-week study program, she guides mothers around the world through the complicated terrain of grief following the loss of a child.
Jacke embodies resilience and hope, showing us all that even after life's most devastating landslides, healing is possible.
I'm honored to have her share her remarkable journey with us today.
(01:41):
Jacke, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much, Rodney, for having me.
I know that you must have shared your story many times in the past, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier.
But can you help me understand what began to unfold on that January evening in 2016?
I have shared it countless times, and it doesn't get much easier, but I know that the reason I'm doing it for sure is to help many people.
(02:08):
January 15, 2016 was just like any other day.
Ironically, I had nothing really scheduled on my calendar.
I had my family still in from Christmas, a couple of them from over in Germany, and we decided to go out for Italian food.
Prior to that, there was just a little bit of going back and forth with Randy and Marseille, Randy, my son, and Marseille, his wife.
(02:30):
I knew that they were struggling with a couple of things that were not really common with my son, being a godly man that he was.
Going out to dinner, but coming home full of Italian food and pasta, you want to get into your pajamas and relax, and I left my phone on the kitchen counter.
And when I came down, my daughter-in-law had left a message on my phone, which I thought was ironic because they were a few hours ahead of time, and I listened to it.
(02:57):
She said, Randy's gone psycho, and there's kids screaming in the background, and I am in this place of being numb, of course.
I yell for my husband, and we immediately try to call her back, and of course, the same chaos.
She can't see her phone.
There's blood on the phone.
She's been trying to call 911.
She asks us to call 911.
(03:18):
We couldn't do that because we were in another state.
Finally, she had somehow made it through to 911, and while we were on the phone with her, they had showed up, and then her phone just turned off.
So it went for hours before we had known anything, whether or not they survived.
Didn't really know what had happened other than my son, a wonderful godly man who was very gentle, tried to send them to heaven prematurely for an act of adultery that he had committed.
(03:48):
Probably a few hours later, we finally get a phone call from her saying that they were all out of surgery, and they were fine, but they were all a little groggy, but in that time before we had gotten a hold of Marseille, my husband and I called our son Randy because we thought, what in the world is going on?
I wanted to think from a mama's perspective that he wasn't some kind of monster.
(04:12):
As he fled the house in their van, he actually answered the phone, and he immediately said, Mom, do you know what I did?
And I said, I do.
And he said, are they still alive?
And I said, son, I don't know.
And he goes, well, I doubt it because they just don't deserve to live for what I did because I am going to cause them a lot of pain.
He proceeded to drive at high speeds.
(04:34):
He told me he was going to turn his phone into someone at Lazy J McDonald's exit on his way down to Interstate 25, heading towards Denver from Cheyenne.
He did indeed hand his phone to a stranger and recorded six minutes of messages to me and his father and the rest of his family, thinking, of course, that his family wasn't going to be in heaven.
(04:58):
He got back on the highway.
He rolled his van.
He got out of the van, which he didn't expect to be alive.
He walked across the divider going into northbound traffic now back to Cheyenne, and that's where he was taken out by a number of cars and trucks where he took his final breath.
(05:19):
We hear terrible stories of people who take their own lives in various ways, but there's so much going on in this, so much to try and comprehend.
It must have been difficult for you once the different parts of the story started to come together for you to even start to comprehend what was going on.
I could still see my hands and my husband's hands shaking when we were listening to the messages on the phone from her and then when we were talking to him and trying to grasp things, trying to worry about him, trying to worry about Marseille and the boys, and actually her dad was living with them at the time, just trying to take in what is our next step.
(05:59):
I guess they had told Marseille that Randy had been taken into custody, but we had found out about another hour later we had a police officer phone our home.
My husband picked up the phone and said, Mr. Van Workum, I'm sorry to tell you, but your son has died on the side of the road.
And my husband was like ready to be prepared to say, no, we'll be in Denver tomorrow.
(06:21):
We're going to be down at the station, you know, and he said again, Mr. Van Workum, your son has died on the side of the road.
And I remember that it was on speakerphone, and I remembered hearing all the groaning in the house.
It was me and him and our son, a friend of mine, and that moment that happened, Rodney, was the moment I remember I had this out-of-body experience to where in that moment I thought, I am experiencing the nightmare that I was hoping to avoid my entire life as a mother was hearing that you lost a child.
(06:57):
And I just remember I wanted to scoop my whole family up and hold them tight and just pretend like this was a nightmare.
But unfortunately, it wasn't.
And we had to make plans to get to Denver Airport.
It was the worst flight of my life.
People are saying, Welcome to Denver.
Are you here to ski?
You know, what are you doing in Denver?
We just probably had the look of death, literally, on our face.
(07:19):
It's me and my husband and my son, Ryan, that went, leaving the rest of the family.
My other son had lived in Oregon, so he wasn't able to come down right away.
The one thing that really stands out, Rodney, is that when we drove down the highway, I remember my husband saying, Okay, the mile marker is coming up where Randy passed away.
I'm just letting you know if you want to look.
(07:39):
Obviously, he had to drive.
So my son and I opted not to look.
And we continued passing by.
It was just silence.
We got to the hospital in Cheyenne.
And the first thing that I remembered was the ground was icy.
It was cold and frigid.
And I just felt like that's how I felt.
Everything was unstable.
(08:00):
I didn't know what I was going to be facing.
When we got to the hospital entrance, the security people were there.
And they said, Who are you here to see?
And we told them.
And they immediately knew who we were.
And they said, Oh, just a moment.
We need to get clearance to know that you can come up and be with Marseille and the kids.
And in that moment, I just felt like the woman that wore the scarlet letter.
(08:22):
I instantly thought, My son did this to this family.
And there's a stigma.
I think anytime that something that is ending up on a magazine of sorts that you see something like this, the first thing people think about is what kind of parents do they have.
And we were the normal parents, Rodney.
(08:43):
We had them in baseball and soccer and basketball, well known in the community.
We all went to church.
He was in the military.
Coming back to the hospital, they let us up and Marseille said, Yes, that is my family.
Please let them up.
This was the kind of relation that we had with her.
When we talk about grief, we know that there are times within grief that we're still in denial, denial of what has happened, denial that we've lost a loved one.
(09:13):
When did it become absolutely certain within your heart that Randy's gone?
Was there a time where you were still hoping against all hope that no, no, they've got it wrong and he's still around?
Were you going through that time of denial in yourself?
I wasn't able to really focus on the fact that my son had died.
(09:34):
Our first focus was to get to the hospital to be there for our other kids.
I think I remembered saying at some point in time that I hadn't even had time to think about Randy.
They didn't even ask us to go down and identify his body.
I don't really think that there was any time that I was in a place of denial that he was gone.
(09:57):
I think it was just a fight or flight just to answer things as they came at us one at a time.
Because when we walked upstairs to the ward, they had him all in the pediatric section.
The first one I saw was the four-year-old, my little grandson Jack.
He couldn't look.
He heard my voice and he just said, 20.
(10:18):
And I came in next to his bed and I did everything I could to not try to break down and cry.
My son went to SEER training in Washington state where he was taught to be a prisoner of war.
He may have not gone overseas and been deployed, but he was in a situation as if he was.
(10:41):
Went through very traumatic training.
When he came back from there, it was never the same.
And the interesting part about his training was when they went, they gave him one item, which was a knife.
And that knife was for them to build shelter, to find food, and of course, to defend themselves.
And that is the weapon of choice that he used because in one millisecond, he could have taken him out with a gun as it's an open carry in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(11:07):
But that was how he was able to disassociate from being the normal sweet guy that he was into this place of he's trained to be a killer, but for very strange reasons, very strange reasons.
And the next one I saw was my older grandson who was six.
He was really cut up a lot worse because I think he probably struggled.
(11:31):
He's a little older.
And then I stayed with them for the longest time, Rodney, because I feared walking down the hallway to see my daughter in love, Marseille, because I didn't know what to expect.
And I waited and waited, and I thought she's probably so lonely and so scared.
And so I prayed and built up enough courage to walk into the room with her.
(11:52):
And the first thing she said to me was, why did he do this?
I would have forgiven him.
I didn't have any answers, although I wanted to give them every answer that everything was going to be okay, my mama bear mode.
But from that point on, it was nothing but a day-to-day survival mode of how are we going to break through this landslide that we've been buried beneath.
(12:19):
You mentioned that often when people hear a story like this, one of the first thoughts is, how did those parents bring this person up?
And so there was that that you were having to deal with for yourself.
But one of the other things that people say is, oh, he must have been an absolute monster.
And yet you've mentioned a couple of times he was definitely acting out of character.
(12:42):
Help me understand the Randy that you knew.
Help me understand the kind of man that he was, because he wasn't just that one terrible act.
He was a husband and a father.
Tell me a little bit about that, Randy.
Thank you for asking that question, because I want to remember Randy of all the days prior to that dark night.
(13:05):
Randy was born as a very sensitive baby.
He was sensitive to sound, very just sensitive things, cried easily over things.
And then as he kept getting older, he was always the one that was worried about everybody's feelings.
He was the one guy then later on that would be the person that people would go to for advice.
He would be soft spoken.
(13:27):
Of course, he went through his time in junior high school when he did get in trouble.
He had brought a highlighter pen with marijuana in it to get $30 from some kid there and he was caught.
He was taken out of junior high school and into a different school district.
And that's when he did receive Jesus when he was expelled from there.
He went to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where they welcomed him with loving arms and he did receive Jesus there.
(13:55):
And from that point on, that was kind of his mission.
You know, he always was.
And then when he decided to go in the military, he was surrounded by airmen that would say, Hey, when we get to this place, you know, we're going to go to this bar.
And he's like, No, I'm married.
You know, I don't do that.
And just really surprised at the behavior of these other guys.
(14:17):
That's not to say that all airmen military people that way, but it was just the way Randy was when we're talking about his character.
So he was the guy that was always going to call you out on a sin or something that is wrong behavior.
So that's why this was completely out of the blue.
In fact, I never noticed anything as far as him being out of sorts, only the last Christmas when he was with us.
(14:42):
So this happened January 15, 2016.
They were with us in California for Christmas in 2015.
He was being out of sorts in the fact that he was wanting to get some of Marseille's friends to go work out at the gym.
They were big workout people at the gym.
And she's like, No, you know, we made a thing.
We don't text other friends, especially female friends.
(15:05):
And he's like, Why?
That's such why making a big deal.
So it was really out of sorts for him, as I said, and I just feel like he was probably just in that place of rebellion.
He knew he was doing wrong.
But as he was leaving to go back, I remember him getting everything out of the car to get into the airport with the car seats with the kids.
(15:25):
And he always gave these big bear hugs.
He was known for that.
And when I was in the driver's seat, he didn't come over the window to say goodbye.
And I got up and I go, Hey, and I just assumed it was because he was in this hurry, right?
But he never forgot to hug his mom.
And I feel like then as I look back, he was ashamed because he knew that he was doing something wrong to not come and get his mama.
(15:49):
So yeah, he was looked up to his brothers, his friends, military friends, teachers, neighbors.
He wrote the most compassionate letters to Marseille to me when he was in the military boot camp.
Randy was told in junior high school when he took the marijuana, the way he got out of it or way that he wasn't given the worst penalty was because the counselor said, Randy did something out of character.
(16:16):
Randy's not a character.
And I believe that to be the same thing.
I believe in 100% that the darkness took over him because he was in that place.
Of course, at this stage, you're left to try and put pieces back together.
And people often talk about how long it takes to get back to normal.
And yet we know there's never a normal after that.
(16:38):
It's something new.
It's a new way to go forward.
And you had to go through that grieving.
I imagine as you started to go through that grieving, there were so many different parts to it.
And I know that you had Marseille and the kids come and live with you and help them through it.
Because at the same time that you're dealing with your grief, you would also be walking alongside your husband, who is going through his own grief.
(17:03):
And then of course, Marseille and the kids, how do you balance all of that when you're facing your own uphill battle to face grief?
Well, Rodney, when you figure that out, please tell me.
Because right now, all I can say, you got a great laugh, by the way.
All I could say is that it was the daily manner that God would give us.
(17:25):
Because there was no two days alike.
Everybody had trauma from a different place.
We have a mom that lost her son.
We have a wife that her husband had an affair and then tried to take their lives and then now is deceased.
Now she's back in the home where Randy grew up with his parents and being in the same bedroom where he was growing up and probably reading his Bible study and doing his homework and sitting at our kitchen counter.
(17:52):
She was numb.
We were all numb.
But I remember that I intentionally bought a tiny little copy maker for my room.
Because as soon as we got the boys to bed, which took us countless hours of just sitting there holding their hands because they were terrified to sleep at night, that I would finally get to bed.
But in the morning, I just wanted some time just before I faced the day.
(18:16):
So I'd make this coffee and the kids are pounding on the door outside.
Noni, Noni, are you coming down to make breakfast?
What are we doing today?
They were six and four.
The innocence of, you know, it's easy for them to kind of put the trauma aside.
But then it would come out in ways that were never expected.
It would be tossing down a bar stool in the middle of breakfast because somebody got upset about something.
(18:41):
It would be terrorizing my little tiny dogs because they didn't feel they had control that night.
So they wanted control over these tiny animals.
It would be outbursts of them fighting with one another.
And now you are also lost the privilege of being a grandparent.
You have to now be a parent alongside with Marseille.
(19:03):
And how do you discipline traumatized children?
How can you?
Because they were doing things that were not okay, but they were also doing things that were because of the trauma.
But we had to somehow put a stop to it.
So it's a lot of prayer, a lot of community, a lot of counseling.
We had EMDR. We took them.
(19:24):
They did play therapy.
They drew pictures of the trauma that I went through with them, which was really difficult to keep hearing their different versions coming out every time.
And they'd sit right next to me and they didn't want to leave.
And they'd look up and then they'd say the most random things like, how come daddy didn't close the garage door when he left?
(19:48):
And Noni, what if your brain breaks like daddy's did?
Would you try to kill us?
So all these things that you're not prepared for.
And I just kept saying, as I look back Rodney, but God.
Because I have no idea.
Just no idea.
I just know that it was probably the most trying time of my life.
(20:11):
And it wasn't even because I was missing my son.
When I started to miss my son, it settled in, was nine months after they moved out.
And then it was just me and my husband.
And the house got quiet.
And we were able to put all these pictures back up on the wall.
And that's when it really hit me.
I remember the tears.
(20:32):
Because I don't think I cried very much only because of the kids during that time.
You're going through this terrible grief.
And at some point along that journey, you decided to found Grieving Mums Finding Hope.
In some people's minds, it's a thought that, well, Jacke's obviously been through this grief.
She's got everything settled and is moving forward and is now helping others.
(20:53):
But I imagine the truth of it is that you're still going through that process.
And it's different from day to day, but you're still going through that.
But at some point, you realized, I need to walk alongside other mums who are facing grief of various kinds after losing a child.
When did you decide I need to be helping others facing some of this trauma?
(21:16):
Being a woman that has always led women's ministries prior to this happening, I had a group called the Trail Angels in South Orange County.
Hundreds of women mountain bikers and pretty much it was church on the trail.
And just giving them a foundational skills of learning to ride.
So I always just felt this need to help women to be all that God wanted them to be.
(21:38):
Because that originates from my mom not being able to be that woman.
So I was really inclined that way.
It really wasn't anything I had planned.
It was all God's plan.
So I did biblical counsel at Saddleback Church for 10 years.
And I was approached by a woman that asked me if I had a publisher.
And I said, absolutely not.
In the middle of taking care of a six and a four-year-old.
(21:59):
She said, well, I'd like for you to meet with this woman.
So I thought she was going to talk to me about writing a book about the story.
And she had told me that they already had a ministry for women that have children that are on drugs.
They were homeless.
They couldn't find them.
They were just estranged.
And these women every night wondered if they were going to get the phone call of their children being dead.
(22:20):
And it was called Hurting Moms Mending Hearts.
Unfortunately, the kids were dying.
There were kids now that they were faced with that now they have a grieving mom and they didn't know what to do with her.
So they went from having hope to not having hope.
She said, would you like to write the curriculum for these women that have lost these children now?
Literally, I think it was probably eight months after, right about the time that I think the kids moved out.
(22:45):
So the timing was pretty much all of God too.
And I said, well, I don't know if I'm ready to do that, but let's talk about it.
Prayed together about it.
I do okay with the writing, but when she wanted to put microphone in front of me and do video of me, everything, I was the deer in the headlights.
I said, this is way too much.
(23:07):
So I literally got on a plane, went to not Kauai, the big island, and I found a tree house in a very remote part of the island on the rainy side.
And I sat down and just received God downloads based on some structure that she wanted me to work around.
And I kept telling her, I can't do daisies and flowers and fluffy things like you want me to do.
(23:29):
I said, I'm a mountain girl.
And I said, all I know is mountains.
And she said, well, not all women can relate to mountains and landslides.
And I said, but they will.
And sure enough, God provided all the material for me in that time.
And then 2017 in October that the book resurfacing, the 12 week study came out for the women.
(23:49):
To this day, I am absolutely humbled and honored to watch women transforming from, I don't want to live, to being in the darkest corners of this world, to becoming leaders, to be traveling across the United States, meeting in Florida for a mini retreat together, laughing, smiling.
(24:13):
It's absolutely mind boggling.
I miss my son, Rodney, like would never replace to have what I have now.
But you know, the song by Torren Wells, taken back with the enemy stole.
That's me.
I want to take back in Jesus name what the enemy stole.
And that's why the grieving mom's finding hope exists.
(24:33):
I know that there are a number of moms who have faced similar trauma to what you have in losing a child, but there's probably the vast majority of people who will never go through that, thankfully.
And I'm wondering, how do we deal when there's someone in our community who has faced that sort of trauma?
(24:56):
I imagine that at the time that this was happening for you, that there would probably be even people within your own Christian community who just because they didn't know what to say or what to think, that they would have withdrawn.
So for those of us that are surrounding someone who has faced this kind of trauma, what's the best thing that we can do?
(25:18):
How do we serve and be there for those people?
It's a very, very good question.
Because a lot of people did avoid us.
They looked at us like the black cat crossing the road.
And why is that?
Well, a lot of them had their own kids that were struggling with things.
They didn't want to be reminded that this could be them, for one thing.
(25:40):
I would be in a grocery store, they would avoid talking to me in the aisles.
But for those that know people that have lost someone, my best advice is find someone that is more or less their gatekeeper.
There's usually somebody that is in charge of helping the family and ask them, what does the family need?
Or just show up and bring something on the doorstep, whether it's a meal.
(26:03):
Usually they have a meal train or something going on.
We got bombarded with books, flowers, everything.
If you don't know what to do, do what you know what to do, and that is to pray.
Because there's a lot of powers we know in prayer for this family as to be instructed on what to do.
But the worst thing you could do is give them advice, tell them how to grieve.
(26:27):
The other worst thing to do is to avoid them.
Even if you just walk up to them and give them a hug and mention their loved one's name.
Because you're not reminding them to make them cry when you mention their name.
It's acknowledging that that person did still live a beautiful life prior to that.
(26:48):
And we're always thinking about them anyway, so it's not going to hurt us to talk about it, to be honest.
When people don't know what to do, they will often avoid talking about that person.
And sometimes you do need distance from the situation.
But more often than not, it seems that, hey, we're thinking about that person that has passed on anyway.
(27:09):
And we want to be talking about the memories and even talking to the friends of that person.
And hey, let's talk about the memories, the good times you had with them.
I'm sure that that's really something that helps to fill your cup as much as it can at that time.
Hmm, yeah.
Because we base this all about this landslide.
(27:29):
I love Stevie Nicks.
The song's been very endearing to me.
The song played during a time that it was prior to Randy dying, and that song just really spoke volumes to me.
We called them the Search and Rescue Team.
And these were the people that showed up that I would have never imagined showed up.
(27:49):
So don't put the pressure on those people that you think are going to show up to be there for you, because God didn't call them.
He didn't equip them to be there for you.
Because they may cause more problems than not.
God may just pull somebody out of the woodwork.
We had so many people.
If I missed anybody, I'm just going to say thank you from the depths of my heart, because there were people that did just pray, that brought meals that were anonymous, that brought things for the kids.
(28:17):
The kids got more stuffed animals than I could even tell you.
They just showed up.
And it's always good to have somebody, as I said, be the lead person in this going through grief, and not to bombard the family.
The one thing that I do know is that you got to be careful not to isolate.
You want to insulate with God, but not isolate and just be on your own.
(28:40):
You don't want to talk to anybody, because the one thing that you are going to need is the hope and the love that's going to come from the other people that are there.
Because we know what happens when we're in the darkness and we're by ourselves.
You're going to be hearing things from the darkness are going to tell you you're never going to get better.
Why are you smiling?
How dare you do this?
Grieving moms laugh.
Sometimes we laugh as hard as we cry.
(29:02):
And it is the most beautiful thing that I witness at retreats.
You will never see so much love and joy in a room as you do when you see these women together.
And I'm sure that a part of that is you're giving them license to be themselves again.
Yeah.
In all the hurt, but in all the joy, in the laughter, they've got a license because they know that the people around them are not judging them, but are walking the same journey.
(29:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so true.
I'm wondering about the family now, because I know that you're very close to God and you're leading other people to understand where God is in the midst of this, but there's Randy's family as well, and I'm just wondering for those people listening who are praying people, how can we be praying for Marseille and the kids at this point?
(29:54):
Hmm.
Thank you again for that.
It's still a daily struggle, believe it or not, nine years later.
Some days great, some days not so great.
So Noah is now 15.
He's in that awkward stage anyway.
He misses his daddy considerably.
We need prayers for him and his stepdad to bond and for Noah to finally just release and accept that's the way that this is going to be.
(30:20):
That's who Jesus brought him for the trauma that they still experience, not knowing where to have Noah go with the trauma that he has experienced.
He is the scar on his face.
I keep encouraging him.
I said, you wear that as a badge of honor because that shows that Jesus saved you right there.
(30:42):
Because my daughter-in-law, by the way, yelled out Jesus' name three times in the midst of the attack on that family.
And I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that's why they're still here.
But the prayer would be for unity and peacefulness within and to reduce the anxiety that they still all carry.
(31:03):
And for Rob, the man that God has brought in to take the reins and figure out how to keep moving forward, I commend him.
And it's amazing, Rodney, because he's like a son in love to me now, too.
We get along great.
I've accepted him from the very beginning, and we trust one another, and we even tease Marseille on the side together.
(31:26):
But the only negative thing is they live too far away from me.
They're all the way in North Carolina, and I don't get to see them as often, unfortunately.
I'm sure that as you've continued to work with other women, there have been a couple of stories that have really touched your heart.
Are there a couple of stories maybe of women who have come back from a real depth that has encouraged you to keep going as well?
(31:51):
How much time do we have?
Well, one that always comes to mind, Rodney, is the woman that lost three of her sons within just a few years apart.
She's got the strongest faith.
In fact, she's the one that just got everybody gathered together in Florida to bring them together with this joy and traveling from different parts of the country.
(32:18):
I watched her at a retreat a couple years ago when she came in, and she had a very solemn look on her face, of course.
I had a picture of her just sitting in the background, not intentionally, but she was in the background.
I zoomed in on it later.
Then fast-forwarding to the end of the retreat, where we bring these rubber, like as if it was a rubber band, but it's a chicken, and we call them chicken flingers.
(32:40):
At the end of the retreat, we just shoot them at each other, to where I've got a picture of her just lining up that chicken and just aiming it at somebody with this big grin on her face, and I put them next to each other, and I said, that's what Jesus does.
Brings these women up and out of the darkness.
Oh my goodness, there's so many of them.
(33:02):
Just maybe a mom from 20 years of having lost a child just now, basically coming out of the darkness and sharing her story and feeling the freedom in Christ, feeling joy after all of this time.
There's not a lot of help for moms that have lost a child.
(33:22):
There is grief share and different things, but nobody will understand the loss of a child.
Unfortunately, there's getting to be more of us and what's going on in this world today.
When you can look at a grieving mom right in her eyes, you just know immediately that there's an instant bond and love and a connection that is going to last a lifetime.
(33:43):
I have stories that have happened at retreats where the mom was quiet the entire time as well, and then finally just said, this is the first time that I have ever shared my story.
Countless testimonies of women that just said, I don't want to be here anymore.
I have no reason to live.
They put their purpose and their identity in being a grieving mom and not their identity in being a daughter of Jesus Christ, to where that's the objective of this group, to not be identified as a grieving mom, but to be identified as a follower of Jesus Christ.
(34:19):
I knew Jesus before, but now I really know him because I have seen the countless things that he has done in my life, my grandkid's life.
The mere fact, Rodney, that that family is still alive is nothing short of a miracle.
Because if you could have seen their cuts, and my son was not a small scrawny man.
He was very, very muscular, very big, and he could have taken them out one second.
(34:45):
But Jesus came in and put the protection over them and said, no.
It's such an encouragement when you mention that woman who had lost a child 20 years ago, because I think there's probably women thinking that, no, this is the way that life goes on, that I will always be in this grief.
And yet, even for those who have lost a child many years ago, and it's become a normal part of life, there is still healing.
(35:12):
If people are wanting to find out more about what you're doing in walking alongside other women, or about the course itself, where is the easiest place for people to find you?
grievingmoms.com.
It's a website that has got a lot of information, resources of Zoom groups, in home groups, in churches.
(35:34):
I have done retreats, have done one-day conferences, again wrote the book Resurfacing.
We have a grieving mom's journal book.
We have devotional for Christmas.
We have four pillars, Rodney.
It's Christ, church, community, and compassionate care.
And that's what we're built on.
You have to make the decision that you're not going to keep staying in this place.
(35:57):
You have more to get up for in the morning.
This is not the end.
A grieving mom's light, Rodney, is the brightest light that is on this earth.
If a grieving mother can stand up after what she's been through, because there's nothing like losing this child, and somebody looks at her and says, oh my gosh, did you see Jacke?
(36:17):
She's still breathing.
And now she has a ministry.
Or did you see Fran?
She's breathing.
And she started this whole organization to help other women in fentanyl poisoning.
Or did you see this woman?
And then people look at them and go, well, how do they do that?
You can't do it without Christ.
(36:38):
That's for certain.
You have to have that hope.
But it's your decision to go to grievingmoms.com or to go to where it is that you find your place of hope and healing.
Start within your church or just in your community.
Ask around.
But we have amazing leaders.
I think we have up to 30 leaders now that have said, here I am, Lord, send me.
(37:01):
And they have been willing to share with other moms.
And we have a mom in Australia.
We have a mom in Ireland.
We have a mom in Canada.
And we have South Africa.
And it's just amazing to see the different cultures come together on a Zoom call together.
And the best part is I snap screen when they're smiling.
(37:21):
It brings me to tears.
Jacke, I will put a link in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you easily and start their own healing journey.
But I want to thank you for being so open and honest with your story, but also for what you're doing in the lives of other women.
Thank you for your time today on Bleeding Daylight.
(37:42):
Oh, thank you so much, Rodney.
What a blessing.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
Do you want to hear more stories filled with hope and inspiration?
Dozens more Bleeding Daylight episodes are waiting for you at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:34):
Today's topic is a difficult one that covers deep grief and the hope that can still shine through.
If anything in this episode raises troubling thoughts or feelings, please reach out for support.
You're not alone.
Talk to someone you trust, contact your local church or a mental health professional.
(00:54):
Help is available.
Today I have the privilege of sitting down with Jacke Rose, the founder of Grieving Mums Finding Hope.
After experiencing unimaginable loss in 2016, Jacke transformed her personal tragedy into a powerful mission of support and healing.
(01:20):
Through her 12-week study program, she guides mothers around the world through the complicated terrain of grief following the loss of a child.
Jacke embodies resilience and hope, showing us all that even after life's most devastating landslides, healing is possible.
I'm honored to have her share her remarkable journey with us today.
(01:41):
Jacke, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much, Rodney, for having me.
I know that you must have shared your story many times in the past, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier.
But can you help me understand what began to unfold on that January evening in 2016?
I have shared it countless times, and it doesn't get much easier, but I know that the reason I'm doing it for sure is to help many people.
(02:08):
January 15, 2016 was just like any other day.
Ironically, I had nothing really scheduled on my calendar.
I had my family still in from Christmas, a couple of them from over in Germany, and we decided to go out for Italian food.
Prior to that, there was just a little bit of going back and forth with Randy and Marseille, Randy, my son, and Marseille, his wife.
(02:30):
I knew that they were struggling with a couple of things that were not really common with my son, being a godly man that he was.
Going out to dinner, but coming home full of Italian food and pasta, you want to get into your pajamas and relax, and I left my phone on the kitchen counter.
And when I came down, my daughter-in-law had left a message on my phone, which I thought was ironic because they were a few hours ahead of time, and I listened to it.
(02:57):
She said, Randy's gone psycho, and there's kids screaming in the background, and I am in this place of being numb, of course.
I yell for my husband, and we immediately try to call her back, and of course, the same chaos.
She can't see her phone.
There's blood on the phone.
She's been trying to call 911.
She asks us to call 911.
(03:18):
We couldn't do that because we were in another state.
Finally, she had somehow made it through to 911, and while we were on the phone with her, they had showed up, and then her phone just turned off.
So it went for hours before we had known anything, whether or not they survived.
Didn't really know what had happened other than my son, a wonderful godly man who was very gentle, tried to send them to heaven prematurely for an act of adultery that he had committed.
(03:48):
Probably a few hours later, we finally get a phone call from her saying that they were all out of surgery, and they were fine, but they were all a little groggy, but in that time before we had gotten a hold of Marseille, my husband and I called our son Randy because we thought, what in the world is going on?
I wanted to think from a mama's perspective that he wasn't some kind of monster.
(04:12):
As he fled the house in their van, he actually answered the phone, and he immediately said, Mom, do you know what I did?
And I said, I do.
And he said, are they still alive?
And I said, son, I don't know.
And he goes, well, I doubt it because they just don't deserve to live for what I did because I am going to cause them a lot of pain.
He proceeded to drive at high speeds.
(04:34):
He told me he was going to turn his phone into someone at Lazy J McDonald's exit on his way down to Interstate 25, heading towards Denver from Cheyenne.
He did indeed hand his phone to a stranger and recorded six minutes of messages to me and his father and the rest of his family, thinking, of course, that his family wasn't going to be in heaven.
(04:58):
He got back on the highway.
He rolled his van.
He got out of the van, which he didn't expect to be alive.
He walked across the divider going into northbound traffic now back to Cheyenne, and that's where he was taken out by a number of cars and trucks where he took his final breath.
(05:19):
We hear terrible stories of people who take their own lives in various ways, but there's so much going on in this, so much to try and comprehend.
It must have been difficult for you once the different parts of the story started to come together for you to even start to comprehend what was going on.
I could still see my hands and my husband's hands shaking when we were listening to the messages on the phone from her and then when we were talking to him and trying to grasp things, trying to worry about him, trying to worry about Marseille and the boys, and actually her dad was living with them at the time, just trying to take in what is our next step.
(05:59):
I guess they had told Marseille that Randy had been taken into custody, but we had found out about another hour later we had a police officer phone our home.
My husband picked up the phone and said, Mr. Van Workum, I'm sorry to tell you, but your son has died on the side of the road.
And my husband was like ready to be prepared to say, no, we'll be in Denver tomorrow.
(06:21):
We're going to be down at the station, you know, and he said again, Mr. Van Workum, your son has died on the side of the road.
And I remember that it was on speakerphone, and I remembered hearing all the groaning in the house.
It was me and him and our son, a friend of mine, and that moment that happened, Rodney, was the moment I remember I had this out-of-body experience to where in that moment I thought, I am experiencing the nightmare that I was hoping to avoid my entire life as a mother was hearing that you lost a child.
(06:57):
And I just remember I wanted to scoop my whole family up and hold them tight and just pretend like this was a nightmare.
But unfortunately, it wasn't.
And we had to make plans to get to Denver Airport.
It was the worst flight of my life.
People are saying, Welcome to Denver.
Are you here to ski?
You know, what are you doing in Denver?
We just probably had the look of death, literally, on our face.
(07:19):
It's me and my husband and my son, Ryan, that went, leaving the rest of the family.
My other son had lived in Oregon, so he wasn't able to come down right away.
The one thing that really stands out, Rodney, is that when we drove down the highway, I remember my husband saying, Okay, the mile marker is coming up where Randy passed away.
I'm just letting you know if you want to look.
(07:39):
Obviously, he had to drive.
So my son and I opted not to look.
And we continued passing by.
It was just silence.
We got to the hospital in Cheyenne.
And the first thing that I remembered was the ground was icy.
It was cold and frigid.
And I just felt like that's how I felt.
Everything was unstable.
(08:00):
I didn't know what I was going to be facing.
When we got to the hospital entrance, the security people were there.
And they said, Who are you here to see?
And we told them.
And they immediately knew who we were.
And they said, Oh, just a moment.
We need to get clearance to know that you can come up and be with Marseille and the kids.
And in that moment, I just felt like the woman that wore the scarlet letter.
(08:22):
I instantly thought, My son did this to this family.
And there's a stigma.
I think anytime that something that is ending up on a magazine of sorts that you see something like this, the first thing people think about is what kind of parents do they have.
And we were the normal parents, Rodney.
(08:43):
We had them in baseball and soccer and basketball, well known in the community.
We all went to church.
He was in the military.
Coming back to the hospital, they let us up and Marseille said, Yes, that is my family.
Please let them up.
This was the kind of relation that we had with her.
When we talk about grief, we know that there are times within grief that we're still in denial, denial of what has happened, denial that we've lost a loved one.
(09:13):
When did it become absolutely certain within your heart that Randy's gone?
Was there a time where you were still hoping against all hope that no, no, they've got it wrong and he's still around?
Were you going through that time of denial in yourself?
I wasn't able to really focus on the fact that my son had died.
(09:34):
Our first focus was to get to the hospital to be there for our other kids.
I think I remembered saying at some point in time that I hadn't even had time to think about Randy.
They didn't even ask us to go down and identify his body.
I don't really think that there was any time that I was in a place of denial that he was gone.
(09:57):
I think it was just a fight or flight just to answer things as they came at us one at a time.
Because when we walked upstairs to the ward, they had him all in the pediatric section.
The first one I saw was the four-year-old, my little grandson Jack.
He couldn't look.
He heard my voice and he just said, 20.
(10:18):
And I came in next to his bed and I did everything I could to not try to break down and cry.
My son went to SEER training in Washington state where he was taught to be a prisoner of war.
He may have not gone overseas and been deployed, but he was in a situation as if he was.
(10:41):
Went through very traumatic training.
When he came back from there, it was never the same.
And the interesting part about his training was when they went, they gave him one item, which was a knife.
And that knife was for them to build shelter, to find food, and of course, to defend themselves.
And that is the weapon of choice that he used because in one millisecond, he could have taken him out with a gun as it's an open carry in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(11:07):
But that was how he was able to disassociate from being the normal sweet guy that he was into this place of he's trained to be a killer, but for very strange reasons, very strange reasons.
And the next one I saw was my older grandson who was six.
He was really cut up a lot worse because I think he probably struggled.
(11:31):
He's a little older.
And then I stayed with them for the longest time, Rodney, because I feared walking down the hallway to see my daughter in love, Marseille, because I didn't know what to expect.
And I waited and waited, and I thought she's probably so lonely and so scared.
And so I prayed and built up enough courage to walk into the room with her.
(11:52):
And the first thing she said to me was, why did he do this?
I would have forgiven him.
I didn't have any answers, although I wanted to give them every answer that everything was going to be okay, my mama bear mode.
But from that point on, it was nothing but a day-to-day survival mode of how are we going to break through this landslide that we've been buried beneath.
(12:19):
You mentioned that often when people hear a story like this, one of the first thoughts is, how did those parents bring this person up?
And so there was that that you were having to deal with for yourself.
But one of the other things that people say is, oh, he must have been an absolute monster.
And yet you've mentioned a couple of times he was definitely acting out of character.
(12:42):
Help me understand the Randy that you knew.
Help me understand the kind of man that he was, because he wasn't just that one terrible act.
He was a husband and a father.
Tell me a little bit about that, Randy.
Thank you for asking that question, because I want to remember Randy of all the days prior to that dark night.
(13:05):
Randy was born as a very sensitive baby.
He was sensitive to sound, very just sensitive things, cried easily over things.
And then as he kept getting older, he was always the one that was worried about everybody's feelings.
He was the one guy then later on that would be the person that people would go to for advice.
He would be soft spoken.
(13:27):
Of course, he went through his time in junior high school when he did get in trouble.
He had brought a highlighter pen with marijuana in it to get $30 from some kid there and he was caught.
He was taken out of junior high school and into a different school district.
And that's when he did receive Jesus when he was expelled from there.
He went to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where they welcomed him with loving arms and he did receive Jesus there.
(13:55):
And from that point on, that was kind of his mission.
You know, he always was.
And then when he decided to go in the military, he was surrounded by airmen that would say, Hey, when we get to this place, you know, we're going to go to this bar.
And he's like, No, I'm married.
You know, I don't do that.
And just really surprised at the behavior of these other guys.
(14:17):
That's not to say that all airmen military people that way, but it was just the way Randy was when we're talking about his character.
So he was the guy that was always going to call you out on a sin or something that is wrong behavior.
So that's why this was completely out of the blue.
In fact, I never noticed anything as far as him being out of sorts, only the last Christmas when he was with us.
(14:42):
So this happened January 15, 2016.
They were with us in California for Christmas in 2015.
He was being out of sorts in the fact that he was wanting to get some of Marseille's friends to go work out at the gym.
They were big workout people at the gym.
And she's like, No, you know, we made a thing.
We don't text other friends, especially female friends.
(15:05):
And he's like, Why?
That's such why making a big deal.
So it was really out of sorts for him, as I said, and I just feel like he was probably just in that place of rebellion.
He knew he was doing wrong.
But as he was leaving to go back, I remember him getting everything out of the car to get into the airport with the car seats with the kids.
(15:25):
And he always gave these big bear hugs.
He was known for that.
And when I was in the driver's seat, he didn't come over the window to say goodbye.
And I got up and I go, Hey, and I just assumed it was because he was in this hurry, right?
But he never forgot to hug his mom.
And I feel like then as I look back, he was ashamed because he knew that he was doing something wrong to not come and get his mama.
(15:49):
So yeah, he was looked up to his brothers, his friends, military friends, teachers, neighbors.
He wrote the most compassionate letters to Marseille to me when he was in the military boot camp.
Randy was told in junior high school when he took the marijuana, the way he got out of it or way that he wasn't given the worst penalty was because the counselor said, Randy did something out of character.
(16:16):
Randy's not a character.
And I believe that to be the same thing.
I believe in 100% that the darkness took over him because he was in that place.
Of course, at this stage, you're left to try and put pieces back together.
And people often talk about how long it takes to get back to normal.
And yet we know there's never a normal after that.
(16:38):
It's something new.
It's a new way to go forward.
And you had to go through that grieving.
I imagine as you started to go through that grieving, there were so many different parts to it.
And I know that you had Marseille and the kids come and live with you and help them through it.
Because at the same time that you're dealing with your grief, you would also be walking alongside your husband, who is going through his own grief.
(17:03):
And then of course, Marseille and the kids, how do you balance all of that when you're facing your own uphill battle to face grief?
Well, Rodney, when you figure that out, please tell me.
Because right now, all I can say, you got a great laugh, by the way.
All I could say is that it was the daily manner that God would give us.
(17:25):
Because there was no two days alike.
Everybody had trauma from a different place.
We have a mom that lost her son.
We have a wife that her husband had an affair and then tried to take their lives and then now is deceased.
Now she's back in the home where Randy grew up with his parents and being in the same bedroom where he was growing up and probably reading his Bible study and doing his homework and sitting at our kitchen counter.
(17:52):
She was numb.
We were all numb.
But I remember that I intentionally bought a tiny little copy maker for my room.
Because as soon as we got the boys to bed, which took us countless hours of just sitting there holding their hands because they were terrified to sleep at night, that I would finally get to bed.
But in the morning, I just wanted some time just before I faced the day.
(18:16):
So I'd make this coffee and the kids are pounding on the door outside.
Noni, Noni, are you coming down to make breakfast?
What are we doing today?
They were six and four.
The innocence of, you know, it's easy for them to kind of put the trauma aside.
But then it would come out in ways that were never expected.
It would be tossing down a bar stool in the middle of breakfast because somebody got upset about something.
(18:41):
It would be terrorizing my little tiny dogs because they didn't feel they had control that night.
So they wanted control over these tiny animals.
It would be outbursts of them fighting with one another.
And now you are also lost the privilege of being a grandparent.
You have to now be a parent alongside with Marseille.
(19:03):
And how do you discipline traumatized children?
How can you?
Because they were doing things that were not okay, but they were also doing things that were because of the trauma.
But we had to somehow put a stop to it.
So it's a lot of prayer, a lot of community, a lot of counseling.
We had EMDR. We took them.
(19:24):
They did play therapy.
They drew pictures of the trauma that I went through with them, which was really difficult to keep hearing their different versions coming out every time.
And they'd sit right next to me and they didn't want to leave.
And they'd look up and then they'd say the most random things like, how come daddy didn't close the garage door when he left?
(19:48):
And Noni, what if your brain breaks like daddy's did?
Would you try to kill us?
So all these things that you're not prepared for.
And I just kept saying, as I look back Rodney, but God.
Because I have no idea.
Just no idea.
I just know that it was probably the most trying time of my life.
(20:11):
And it wasn't even because I was missing my son.
When I started to miss my son, it settled in, was nine months after they moved out.
And then it was just me and my husband.
And the house got quiet.
And we were able to put all these pictures back up on the wall.
And that's when it really hit me.
I remember the tears.
(20:32):
Because I don't think I cried very much only because of the kids during that time.
You're going through this terrible grief.
And at some point along that journey, you decided to found Grieving Mums Finding Hope.
In some people's minds, it's a thought that, well, Jacke's obviously been through this grief.
She's got everything settled and is moving forward and is now helping others.
(20:53):
But I imagine the truth of it is that you're still going through that process.
And it's different from day to day, but you're still going through that.
But at some point, you realized, I need to walk alongside other mums who are facing grief of various kinds after losing a child.
When did you decide I need to be helping others facing some of this trauma?
(21:16):
Being a woman that has always led women's ministries prior to this happening, I had a group called the Trail Angels in South Orange County.
Hundreds of women mountain bikers and pretty much it was church on the trail.
And just giving them a foundational skills of learning to ride.
So I always just felt this need to help women to be all that God wanted them to be.
(21:38):
Because that originates from my mom not being able to be that woman.
So I was really inclined that way.
It really wasn't anything I had planned.
It was all God's plan.
So I did biblical counsel at Saddleback Church for 10 years.
And I was approached by a woman that asked me if I had a publisher.
And I said, absolutely not.
In the middle of taking care of a six and a four-year-old.
(21:59):
She said, well, I'd like for you to meet with this woman.
So I thought she was going to talk to me about writing a book about the story.
And she had told me that they already had a ministry for women that have children that are on drugs.
They were homeless.
They couldn't find them.
They were just estranged.
And these women every night wondered if they were going to get the phone call of their children being dead.
(22:20):
And it was called Hurting Moms Mending Hearts.
Unfortunately, the kids were dying.
There were kids now that they were faced with that now they have a grieving mom and they didn't know what to do with her.
So they went from having hope to not having hope.
She said, would you like to write the curriculum for these women that have lost these children now?
Literally, I think it was probably eight months after, right about the time that I think the kids moved out.
(22:45):
So the timing was pretty much all of God too.
And I said, well, I don't know if I'm ready to do that, but let's talk about it.
Prayed together about it.
I do okay with the writing, but when she wanted to put microphone in front of me and do video of me, everything, I was the deer in the headlights.
I said, this is way too much.
(23:07):
So I literally got on a plane, went to not Kauai, the big island, and I found a tree house in a very remote part of the island on the rainy side.
And I sat down and just received God downloads based on some structure that she wanted me to work around.
And I kept telling her, I can't do daisies and flowers and fluffy things like you want me to do.
(23:29):
I said, I'm a mountain girl.
And I said, all I know is mountains.
And she said, well, not all women can relate to mountains and landslides.
And I said, but they will.
And sure enough, God provided all the material for me in that time.
And then 2017 in October that the book resurfacing, the 12 week study came out for the women.
(23:49):
To this day, I am absolutely humbled and honored to watch women transforming from, I don't want to live, to being in the darkest corners of this world, to becoming leaders, to be traveling across the United States, meeting in Florida for a mini retreat together, laughing, smiling.
(24:13):
It's absolutely mind boggling.
I miss my son, Rodney, like would never replace to have what I have now.
But you know, the song by Torren Wells, taken back with the enemy stole.
That's me.
I want to take back in Jesus name what the enemy stole.
And that's why the grieving mom's finding hope exists.
(24:33):
I know that there are a number of moms who have faced similar trauma to what you have in losing a child, but there's probably the vast majority of people who will never go through that, thankfully.
And I'm wondering, how do we deal when there's someone in our community who has faced that sort of trauma?
(24:56):
I imagine that at the time that this was happening for you, that there would probably be even people within your own Christian community who just because they didn't know what to say or what to think, that they would have withdrawn.
So for those of us that are surrounding someone who has faced this kind of trauma, what's the best thing that we can do?
(25:18):
How do we serve and be there for those people?
It's a very, very good question.
Because a lot of people did avoid us.
They looked at us like the black cat crossing the road.
And why is that?
Well, a lot of them had their own kids that were struggling with things.
They didn't want to be reminded that this could be them, for one thing.
(25:40):
I would be in a grocery store, they would avoid talking to me in the aisles.
But for those that know people that have lost someone, my best advice is find someone that is more or less their gatekeeper.
There's usually somebody that is in charge of helping the family and ask them, what does the family need?
Or just show up and bring something on the doorstep, whether it's a meal.
(26:03):
Usually they have a meal train or something going on.
We got bombarded with books, flowers, everything.
If you don't know what to do, do what you know what to do, and that is to pray.
Because there's a lot of powers we know in prayer for this family as to be instructed on what to do.
But the worst thing you could do is give them advice, tell them how to grieve.
(26:27):
The other worst thing to do is to avoid them.
Even if you just walk up to them and give them a hug and mention their loved one's name.
Because you're not reminding them to make them cry when you mention their name.
It's acknowledging that that person did still live a beautiful life prior to that.
(26:48):
And we're always thinking about them anyway, so it's not going to hurt us to talk about it, to be honest.
When people don't know what to do, they will often avoid talking about that person.
And sometimes you do need distance from the situation.
But more often than not, it seems that, hey, we're thinking about that person that has passed on anyway.
(27:09):
And we want to be talking about the memories and even talking to the friends of that person.
And hey, let's talk about the memories, the good times you had with them.
I'm sure that that's really something that helps to fill your cup as much as it can at that time.
Hmm, yeah.
Because we base this all about this landslide.
(27:29):
I love Stevie Nicks.
The song's been very endearing to me.
The song played during a time that it was prior to Randy dying, and that song just really spoke volumes to me.
We called them the Search and Rescue Team.
And these were the people that showed up that I would have never imagined showed up.
(27:49):
So don't put the pressure on those people that you think are going to show up to be there for you, because God didn't call them.
He didn't equip them to be there for you.
Because they may cause more problems than not.
God may just pull somebody out of the woodwork.
We had so many people.
If I missed anybody, I'm just going to say thank you from the depths of my heart, because there were people that did just pray, that brought meals that were anonymous, that brought things for the kids.
(28:17):
The kids got more stuffed animals than I could even tell you.
They just showed up.
And it's always good to have somebody, as I said, be the lead person in this going through grief, and not to bombard the family.
The one thing that I do know is that you got to be careful not to isolate.
You want to insulate with God, but not isolate and just be on your own.
(28:40):
You don't want to talk to anybody, because the one thing that you are going to need is the hope and the love that's going to come from the other people that are there.
Because we know what happens when we're in the darkness and we're by ourselves.
You're going to be hearing things from the darkness are going to tell you you're never going to get better.
Why are you smiling?
How dare you do this?
Grieving moms laugh.
Sometimes we laugh as hard as we cry.
(29:02):
And it is the most beautiful thing that I witness at retreats.
You will never see so much love and joy in a room as you do when you see these women together.
And I'm sure that a part of that is you're giving them license to be themselves again.
Yeah.
In all the hurt, but in all the joy, in the laughter, they've got a license because they know that the people around them are not judging them, but are walking the same journey.
(29:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so true.
I'm wondering about the family now, because I know that you're very close to God and you're leading other people to understand where God is in the midst of this, but there's Randy's family as well, and I'm just wondering for those people listening who are praying people, how can we be praying for Marseille and the kids at this point?
(29:54):
Hmm.
Thank you again for that.
It's still a daily struggle, believe it or not, nine years later.
Some days great, some days not so great.
So Noah is now 15.
He's in that awkward stage anyway.
He misses his daddy considerably.
We need prayers for him and his stepdad to bond and for Noah to finally just release and accept that's the way that this is going to be.
(30:20):
That's who Jesus brought him for the trauma that they still experience, not knowing where to have Noah go with the trauma that he has experienced.
He is the scar on his face.
I keep encouraging him.
I said, you wear that as a badge of honor because that shows that Jesus saved you right there.
(30:42):
Because my daughter-in-law, by the way, yelled out Jesus' name three times in the midst of the attack on that family.
And I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that's why they're still here.
But the prayer would be for unity and peacefulness within and to reduce the anxiety that they still all carry.
(31:03):
And for Rob, the man that God has brought in to take the reins and figure out how to keep moving forward, I commend him.
And it's amazing, Rodney, because he's like a son in love to me now, too.
We get along great.
I've accepted him from the very beginning, and we trust one another, and we even tease Marseille on the side together.
(31:26):
But the only negative thing is they live too far away from me.
They're all the way in North Carolina, and I don't get to see them as often, unfortunately.
I'm sure that as you've continued to work with other women, there have been a couple of stories that have really touched your heart.
Are there a couple of stories maybe of women who have come back from a real depth that has encouraged you to keep going as well?
(31:51):
How much time do we have?
Well, one that always comes to mind, Rodney, is the woman that lost three of her sons within just a few years apart.
She's got the strongest faith.
In fact, she's the one that just got everybody gathered together in Florida to bring them together with this joy and traveling from different parts of the country.
(32:18):
I watched her at a retreat a couple years ago when she came in, and she had a very solemn look on her face, of course.
I had a picture of her just sitting in the background, not intentionally, but she was in the background.
I zoomed in on it later.
Then fast-forwarding to the end of the retreat, where we bring these rubber, like as if it was a rubber band, but it's a chicken, and we call them chicken flingers.
(32:40):
At the end of the retreat, we just shoot them at each other, to where I've got a picture of her just lining up that chicken and just aiming it at somebody with this big grin on her face, and I put them next to each other, and I said, that's what Jesus does.
Brings these women up and out of the darkness.
Oh my goodness, there's so many of them.
(33:02):
Just maybe a mom from 20 years of having lost a child just now, basically coming out of the darkness and sharing her story and feeling the freedom in Christ, feeling joy after all of this time.
There's not a lot of help for moms that have lost a child.
(33:22):
There is grief share and different things, but nobody will understand the loss of a child.
Unfortunately, there's getting to be more of us and what's going on in this world today.
When you can look at a grieving mom right in her eyes, you just know immediately that there's an instant bond and love and a connection that is going to last a lifetime.
(33:43):
I have stories that have happened at retreats where the mom was quiet the entire time as well, and then finally just said, this is the first time that I have ever shared my story.
Countless testimonies of women that just said, I don't want to be here anymore.
I have no reason to live.
They put their purpose and their identity in being a grieving mom and not their identity in being a daughter of Jesus Christ, to where that's the objective of this group, to not be identified as a grieving mom, but to be identified as a follower of Jesus Christ.
(34:19):
I knew Jesus before, but now I really know him because I have seen the countless things that he has done in my life, my grandkid's life.
The mere fact, Rodney, that that family is still alive is nothing short of a miracle.
Because if you could have seen their cuts, and my son was not a small scrawny man.
He was very, very muscular, very big, and he could have taken them out one second.
(34:45):
But Jesus came in and put the protection over them and said, no.
It's such an encouragement when you mention that woman who had lost a child 20 years ago, because I think there's probably women thinking that, no, this is the way that life goes on, that I will always be in this grief.
And yet, even for those who have lost a child many years ago, and it's become a normal part of life, there is still healing.
(35:12):
If people are wanting to find out more about what you're doing in walking alongside other women, or about the course itself, where is the easiest place for people to find you?
grievingmoms.com.
It's a website that has got a lot of information, resources of Zoom groups, in home groups, in churches.
(35:34):
I have done retreats, have done one-day conferences, again wrote the book Resurfacing.
We have a grieving mom's journal book.
We have devotional for Christmas.
We have four pillars, Rodney.
It's Christ, church, community, and compassionate care.
And that's what we're built on.
You have to make the decision that you're not going to keep staying in this place.
(35:57):
You have more to get up for in the morning.
This is not the end.
A grieving mom's light, Rodney, is the brightest light that is on this earth.
If a grieving mother can stand up after what she's been through, because there's nothing like losing this child, and somebody looks at her and says, oh my gosh, did you see Jacke?
(36:17):
She's still breathing.
And now she has a ministry.
Or did you see Fran?
She's breathing.
And she started this whole organization to help other women in fentanyl poisoning.
Or did you see this woman?
And then people look at them and go, well, how do they do that?
You can't do it without Christ.
(36:38):
That's for certain.
You have to have that hope.
But it's your decision to go to grievingmoms.com or to go to where it is that you find your place of hope and healing.
Start within your church or just in your community.
Ask around.
But we have amazing leaders.
I think we have up to 30 leaders now that have said, here I am, Lord, send me.
(37:01):
And they have been willing to share with other moms.
And we have a mom in Australia.
We have a mom in Ireland.
We have a mom in Canada.
And we have South Africa.
And it's just amazing to see the different cultures come together on a Zoom call together.
And the best part is I snap screen when they're smiling.
(37:21):
It brings me to tears.
Jacke, I will put a link in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you easily and start their own healing journey.
But I want to thank you for being so open and honest with your story, but also for what you're doing in the lives of other women.
Thank you for your time today on Bleeding Daylight.
(37:42):
Oh, thank you so much, Rodney.
What a blessing.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
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