February 6. Lou Bloss. Lou is a man with wide-ranging experience. He is a US Army veteran and an award-winning journalist, who has published everywhere from minor-league baseball news to Christian devotionals to a how-to-write textbook. Lou owns Lou Bloss Media, which provides marketing, advertising, and publishing for the restaurant industry.
And Lou is a man with a great sense of humor. He can keep a straight face while he boasts about his bowling average of 132. That sense of humor doesn’t mean life has been all ponies and firecrackers. Here’s his story.
Real courage calls you to stay the course; answers will come.
Early morning sun shone weakly through the windows, blanching the pages of the open Bible. The young father sat motionless. Upstairs, his daughters slept, too young to understand the gaping hole left in cancer’s wake. Who was he now? Widower. Single father. One half of a shattered whole.
He skimmed the page, a story he had read many times. But this time, the words spoke to him with new meaning:
“And as [Rachel] was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, ‘Don’t despair, for you have another son.’ … So Rachel died.… Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb. Israel moved on again and pitched his tent beyond Migdal Eder” (Genesis 35:17, 19–21 NIV).
He pulled his Bible closer and saw with an understanding that had seemed impossible, even moments before.
Lou and Terrie Bloss had looked forward to the birth of their second daughter. With only three years between them, their girls would grow up close—friends, as well as sisters. Lou and Terri had spent the last months of the pregnancy doing typical things: they got the nursery ready, talked with their firstborn about becoming a big sister, and made plans for their future.
But a rare form of cancer was silently spreading throughout Terrie’s body. Within four months of their daughter’s birth, Terrie was gone.
“I had these expectations of happily ever after,” Lou said. “Life didn’t work that way.”
The months following Terrie’s death were the most difficult of Lou’s life. “Everything felt hard. Just getting up felt hard. I knew I had to get my head together—I had two young daughters depending on me—but I had the same question anyone else would: How?”
Until he had answers, Lou simply stayed the course. He showed up at his job every day, even on the days it felt impossible. He continued to go to church, even when he wanted to stay home. And he maintained the friendships he and Terrie had cultivated together, even though it hurt to do it without her. Most importantly, Lou clung desperately to God and looked for answers in the Bible.
Daily reminders of God’s love—the kindness of his coworkers, the support of his friends—these comforted him, but the strength he needed to survive came from the quiet time he set aside each day to pray and read his Bible.
One morning, several months after Terrie’s death, he had a breakthrough. “I was reading the story of Jacob in Genesis 35, and it hit me. Jacob was on his path, doing what God told him to do, and his wife, Rachel, died in childbirth. She named their son Benoni, which means ‘son of my sorrow,’ but Jacob renamed him Benjamin, which means ‘son of my right hand.’
“He didn’t want to constantly dwell on the sorrow; he wanted to dwell on the good. Jacob buried Rachel. He grieved her and memorialized her, remembered her, but he also moved on and continued with what God had called him to do. I thought that was significant. I knew I couldn’t constantly dwell on what I had lost. I had to move forward. The more I thought about it, I realized moving on with my life was an act of faith.”
Lou believes this same process—grieving and then moving on in faith—applies to many of life’s difficulties. “For all of us,” he says, “something drops into our lives unexpected. We get fired, get hurt, lose someone. Things happen. Some people get kicked down the hill and don’t get back up. You have to get back up.”
Are you facing difficulties right now? Take a moment and write out something you could do today to move forward. Real courage calls you to stay the course; answers will come.
This story is based on an interview with Lou Bloss, 2019.
Story read by Joel Carpenter