Hello Norma, welcome to BrandEducation! Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’ve been married to my second husband, John, for over 20 years now. On our first date, he presented me with a lovely long-stemmed red rose, and to my delight, he has been giving me flowers ever since—sometimes on special occasions and other times for no reason at all. I especially love it when he does that!
I almost lost him last year, but a great doctor in St. Louis removed his cancerous kidney and preserved his life. I’m so thankful I still have my husband because he is so good to me and supports me in every way in my writing endeavors.
I’m also the mother of two children: my beautiful daughter, Karen, who died at age 15, and my handsome son, David, who passed away last year, leaving me bereft of both my children. In addition, I’m the proud grandmother of three handsome grandsons, all in their twenties: Neal, Hunter, and Landon. I don’t get to see them very often because they live far away, but when I do hear from them or get to see them, I’m over the moon happy!
Currently, I’m both an author and a substitute teacher at our local high school.
Where are you from, and where do you currently live?
My childhood was spent on a dairy farm in southwest Missouri, near Springfield. Later, during most of my marriage to my first husband, Lewis—the father of my children—we lived on another farm in a different area. I was a beautician, and Lewis was a barber in the shop we built together in a small town near our home, where both of our children attended school.
Now, my husband John and I live in another town near where I first grew up.
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Truthfully, I don’t have much spare time since I substitute teach and write, but I do enjoy my breaks during summer vacation when school is out. My husband and I like taking short trips to nearby places of interest or longer trips to visit relatives.
Can you share a bit about your journey and how you got to where you are today?
As I mentioned earlier, I lost my daughter Karen in 1982 when she was just 15 years old, and her death became a defining moment in my life.
Shortly afterward, I wrote a two-book volume called A Personal Grief & A Reasonable Faith, published under my first married name, Norma E. Sawyers. Since then, I have written other related books.
Then, in January 2025, as I finished writing and publishing Book One of my fiction Stand in the Gap Trilogy, A Parallel Time & Place, the idea came to me to update and revise some of my earlier nonfiction books into a new Window of Opportunity Trilogy—designed to help people searching for answers about God and ultimate reality.
After much prayer, the revised trilogy became:
- A Personal Grief: Finding Faith Through Loss
- A Reasonable Faith: Finding Faith Through Rational Evidence
- A Perilous Time: Keeping Faith During Periods of Adversity
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Redeemed by God.
What inspires you in your work and life?
My relationship with God inspires me to keep moving forward in both my work and life.
Life has presented me with many difficulties and unexpected trials that have tested my faith. Losing my son David last year was one of those trials.
On Christmas Eve, 2025, I wrote in my journal about the mixed emotions I was experiencing: grief over losing my son in May 2025, alongside the relief that my husband John had survived surgery to remove a cancerous kidney just a month earlier.
Because of losing both of my children, I struggled to remain faithful to my calling to write.
That day, after prayer, God gave me a passage from 2 Kings 4:25–26 through the devotional Streams in the Desert. It was about the Shunammite woman who had lost her child but answered, “Everything is alright.”
That scripture deeply spoke to me.
I realized that just as the Shunammite mother trusted God with her child, I could trust that my children were with Christ, and that in Him we are still united.
That truth helped me unbind my soul from grief and continue moving forward in my writing ministry.
Share something our audience might not know about you.
People might not know that I’m part of the “Silent Generation,” which includes those born between 1928 and 1945.
But as Psalm 92:14–15 says, by God’s power, older people can “still bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green.”
I certainly hope and pray that will be true for me.
How did you get started in writing?
As I noted earlier, in 1982, when my daughter Karen Kay was only 15 years old, I lost her in a tragic accident. It was her death that motivated me to begin writing. Writing the personal part of my story after Karen’s death was extremely hard. The shock of what had happened to my daughter in the motorcycle/truck accident was almost unbearable. Because of my grief over the circumstances of her loss, everything was still so difficult at that time. It was a struggle for me to do my household chores or everyday tasks like cooking and cleaning. For example, it was difficult to even think about how to put ingredients together to prepare a meal, and so forth. It also seemed like more than I could do to style the hair of customers and carry on small talk with them at the same time. I was too preoccupied with my loss to be good company. However, I knew that I truly needed to share with others what God had done in my life, and I believed it would be helpful for me to write my personal story for that reason.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your book and the story behind it?
As I’ve mentioned, the inspiration behind my book A Personal Grief was the loss of my daughter Karen. However, the second part of the revised book, called A Recovery from Loss, differs from the original, which focused more on the spiritual aspects of the grief journey. This change came about because, as I was revising the book, I realized that parents who have lost a child sometimes need to first dig more deeply into the emotional and physical manifestations of their grief. Then, after the healing process has had a chance to begin on those fronts, they may be more open to seeking spiritual answers. In fact, people who have suffered tragedy or loss of any kind may be more receptive to spiritual guidance during such times.
That’s why the book is subtitled Finding Faith Through Loss. In my own case, God used the loss of my daughter to bring me to true, healing faith in Him. I believe the story of how God brought that about is both amazing and beautiful. As I mentioned, I not only wanted to share that journey in Part 1, A Personal Grief, but I also wanted to offer support to others in dealing with the physical and emotional reactions to grief, as I did in Part 2, A Recovery from Loss. That section, revised from my book A Grieving Parent’s Book of Hope, includes chapters on dealing with trauma such as shock and denial, emotional suffering, depression, panic, anger, physical effects, life changes, engaging in activity, and rebuilding life. The final two chapters gently explore the search for spiritual answers and learning to trust ultimate reality.
Are you working on any new projects or ideas that you’d like to share?
As mentioned earlier, a spiritual awakening or revival seems to be taking place in our nation, especially among some young people. That’s why I’m beginning to write a much-needed series of Gen Z workbooks to reach out to these young men and women, which I hope to publish in 2027. They will be based on my Window of Opportunity Trilogy and designed for young people ages 14 to 29—Generation Z—an age group that has largely been neglected when it comes to apologetic themes written from a perspective that appeals to them.
For instance, many in Gen Z are desperately seeking answers to questions about God and His actions, such as: Why does God allow evil and suffering? Does He really care about our pain? Is God truly there? How do I cope with death? These young people long for answers to these kinds of questions because they arise from our common human frailty and existence, no matter our age.
What are your goals and aspirations moving forward?
My goals and aspirations moving forward center on two areas: writing and publishing three new Gen Z Window of Opportunity Workbooks and completing the final two books of the Stand in the Gap Trilogy. Here are the dedications for those two upcoming books:
The Ezekiel Factor: History Repeats — Disobedience Brings Correction is written for the citizens of America. May God use this book to guide you into a better understanding of the destiny of the United States. The future of our great nation will largely be shaped by the actions—both individually and collectively—of those who, with understanding and diligence, follow God’s will as set forth in His Word, the Holy Bible.
The Zechariah Factor: History Repeats — Repentance Brings Grace is written for the people of America. May God use this volume to deepen your understanding of what lies ahead for the United States. The rebuilding of our corrected nation depends upon the spiritual renewal of its repentant citizens as we return to the Christian foundations upon which our nation was first established.