After getting married and facing unexpected community changes, illness, and the tragic loss of a close friend, Rocky and Alli were overwhelmed—but also deeply met by God through unlikely people. God used suffering to teach them the power of connection, hope, and the urgency of His love in a broken world.
We got married in August of 2022. And during that time, a lot of people who are part of our current Bible study decided to go to different home churches. And we had decided to go to a different home church to and we were anticipating that we were going to be with a lot of the friends that we were with for years.
And we ended up that ended up not happening.
it was hard to figure out how to be married and then how to make new friends and how to also be okay with not being with the people we wanted to be with.
And yeah, I feel like that whole year, our first year marriage was pretty difficult. I ended up getting really sick and we didn't know why and it was like a year and a half of doctor's appointments and being sick like three out of the seven days of the week trying to navigate what's going on. And Rocky was still in school, trying to finish up school.
And so it just kind of felt like things were snowballing out of control
like all this change and like, transition kind of culminated with that really close friend taking his own life.
Yeah, I feel like it was tough because we had gone on one of our first vacations with this new group, and he took his own life while we were there, and I think we were, at least for me, like I had a really stinky attitude about, like, trying to figure out new friends, but I couldn't have been more grateful
that we are around the people we are with. Yeah, I feel like they helped us navigate like getting home soon. They prayed with us. They made us make sure we ate food, they made phone calls for us and yeah, it was like it was really horrible and we're really sad. But to know people who were your didn't, though we were struggling to get to know.
I think God knew. We're like the very people that we needed when that happened. And
what I do know is that God wants to provide for us. Our friend is in heaven and gets to spend eternity with him. I know that we don't have the regret any of the time that we spent loving him and letting him into our lives.
I feel like him passing away was a big wake up call for me with, like, I, like, I think cause I had such a bad attitude and I was so disappointed and was really guarded towards having or making new friends and realizing like after he had died, like I, he didn't regret once, like any
time I'd spend with him any energy or resource I spent loving him. And like, worst case scenario happened. And how why would I regret that with other people? And I think God showed me a lot about what it looks like to give my heart to other people and not be so guarded
seek for his kingdom, all of their things will be given to you. You'll have your needs met in ways that you don't have any idea how they could have been met
what I didn't anticipate was the work that God had for us in the next upcoming months. We were able to meet a lot of people who didn't know him.
And yeah, we had opportunities to serve in really unique ways. So that was really exciting and really different. And
since it's happened, I've talked to people who've gone through really sudden losses like this and have gotten to listen and love them and, you know, help them feel heard and understood. in this process. So I'm grateful that God can still use this situation that he's heartbroken about
just so worth it. knowing that God could use this situation to bring people to know him. And to convince us of the urgency of how much people need God and how broken the world is, how much pain there is out there.
But he has an answer to that. And it was through Jesus and what he was willing to do and sacrifice for us. so it's hard to think of anything else that I would want to put my time towards.
know, just knowing that situations that are awful and that God hates that he can redeem those to help somebody else going through it or teach them about what he cares about and that he loves people and wants what's best for them.
Like no one can avoid suffering. And I think God has taught us a lot.
Like, don't spend your life trying to avoid it, but instead allow it to teach you the urgency and need that people have living in a broken world like we know it's broken. We're convinced I couldn't be more convinced that this world sucks. But I also feel like through dealing with tragedy couldn't be more convinced that it sucks just as much for everyone else.
And. And God is the only thing that has given us any glimmer of hope and we can give that to other people too.