Finding Purpose in Pain

Evelyn Husband lost the love of her life, space shuttle commander Rick Husband, in a national tragedy. A year later, she shares her message about God's healing hand.

Corrie Cutrer

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A love note is still visible on Evelyn Husband's makeup mirror in her bathroom. The words were written with a bar of soap by her husband, astronaut Rick Husband, shortly before his departure as commander of the space shuttle Columbia on January 16, 2003. It reads, "I love you Evey, love Rick." It was only meant to appear there temporarily.

"Of course I can't wash that off," Evelyn says.

It's been nearly a year since Evelyn stood with the other families of the space shuttle Columbia's crew at the landing site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, waiting for her husband to return home. The shuttle was just minutes from landing when NASA's Mission Control lost contact with the Columbia crew. The next few moments were a blur of events: video images of Columbia breaking apart over the Texas skyline, NASA officials scrambling to move the family members away from view of television cameras. Evelyn remembers looking at the faces of her son, Matthew, and daughter, Laura, then 7 and 12. Matthew turned to his mother.

"He said, 'I guess I'm not going to be in Indian Guides with Dad at the YMCA anymore.' It was the first thing that hit him," Evelyn says.

Laura also was trying to process this new gap in her life. "Who's going to walk me down the aisle one day, Mamma?" she asked, teary-eyed. "Who's going to help me with my math homework?"

"They were instantly aware we were a different unit," Evelyn, 45, says of her children.

''The past year I've had to take hold of God's hand and step out in faith into absolute blackness.''

So began the Husbands' painful journey of loss. In the months following the accident, Evelyn, a committed Christian, spoke openly about how the faith she found as a 13-year-old girl had sustained her. Two days after the accident, she appeared on the Today show and shared how she was trusting in God to give her strength through this difficult time. As Evelyn recited the words of Proverbs 3:5-6, the show's producers flashed the verses on the screen.

That was the beginning of Evelyn's efforts to deliver a powerful message: Even in the midst of intense suffering, God is faithful. In recent months, she's told her story to tens of thousands of women across the country at Women of Faith conferences.

"Most of you aren't going to lose the person you love most on national television," she told an audience of women in California last summer. "But every person will face big tragedies and little everyday crises. Your only consistency is Jesus Christ."

Where did this incredible strength in the face of pain and loss come from? For Evelyn, it was partly from experiencing God's comfort in the past.

"Deep inside, I knew God was going to walk me through this somehow," she says. "I knew it because he'd walked with me through other crises earlier in my life."

One of those crises began shortly after Texas Tech University sweethearts Rick and Evelyn were married in 1982. They'd been trying to start a family without success. During the couple's first five years of marriage, Evelyn miscarried twice and began infertility treatments.

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Originally published in: Today's Christian Woman, 2004, January/February, Vol. 26, Issue 1, Page 54

Related Topics:
Columbia disaster, Grief, moving on, NASA, Rick Husband, widow

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