Gerry Walquist would never wish on anyone what happened to her on December 30, 2013, but she also knows she wouldn’t be who she is today if not for that tragic day.

On the day before New Year’s Eve nearly eight years ago, an intruder, out of jail one month, broke into the vacation rental that Gerry, husband Brett, and children Rachel and Thomas enjoyed during a Christmas trip to Puerto Rico. Gerry woke up after 1 a.m. and realized Brett wasn’t in bed. She went out to the kitchen and saw him there, along with the man who broke in. 

Gerry jumped on the man, Rachel ran out of her bedroom screaming, and the man got away through a window in the kitchen. But the unthinkable had already happened; the man had stabbed Brett, who was now lying on the kitchen floor. Crying out at first, “Lord, please save him,” Gerry realized quickly Brett was spending his last moments this side of eternity.

What happened in the days, months, and years that followed are a testimony to God’s faithfulness in the midst of terrible, life-shattering tragedy. Gerry’s faith, and the faith of her children, has grown, and she has seen the Lord bless them all in ways she could not have expected after this devastating loss. Which includes forgiving Brett’s murderer.

“I was brought to my knees,” Gerry shares during the podcast. “I called on the name of the Lord; I needed Him. In the first several weeks afterward, I was so broken. People would ask me, ‘What can I do?’ and I’d say, ‘Just keep praying.’ The Lord brought people into my life who helped help me in times I just didn’t know how I was going to manage. But He was there for me, and He’s been there for me.”

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Before she was recently hired at Cedarville as an administrative assistant in the human resources department, Gerry served as a preschool teacher at Legacy Christian Academy in Xenia, Ohio.