The comfort of family and friends helps in times of despair and mourning but nothing beats the power of prayer. For Shelly Genovese Calhouns, losing her husband to the 9/11 attack left her emotionally broken but she never wavered in her faith that God will help her through it all.
In her memoir “Twice Blessed: A Journey of Hope through 9/11,” Calhouns recalled the moment she had to come to terms that her husband Steve was dead. He was at work on the 104th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when the attack happened. He assured her during a phone call that he was going to be alright.
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Calhoun said she held on to this hope and believed that God would bring him back home. However, she accepted Steve’s grim fate when she saw the two towers collapsed to the ground.
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Her life after that was never the same. Calhouns couldn’t go on with life as normal because the grief was too much to bear. But she knew she had to move on for the sake of her daughter so she surrendered her life to God. She laid out all of her burdens on him through prayer.
“I had hope!! I knew God was going to take care of my daughter and me. And He did. God was faithful through it all,” she said.
Calhouns revealed that not once did she blame God for the tragedy but blamed the “evil people.” But she never let that anger control her life. Instead, she constantly prayed for God’s guidance and support and He never failed.
“The body of Christ was so unbelievable to me, and prayed me through my darkest days. More than I ever realized, God was always there. He is there to offer comfort in times of trouble and to give us hope when we feel hopeless,” Calhouns said.
God also had other plans for Calhouns’ love life after Steve’s death. Just when she felt that she couldn’t love anyone else, she reunited with her best friend Heath when she moved back to Dallas with her daughter. A friendship developed that soon turned to romance.
Now a mother-of-two and happily married, Calhouns reminds those who are experiencing grief and tragedy to take their burdens to the Lord because “He is honestly our only hope.” She says “God will give you just enough light to take the next step toward your journey of healing.”