George died in May. He was only 37 years old. The cancer appeared seemingly out of nowhere, instantaneously, over night. It was diagnosed in January—and by May he was gone. So little time, so shocking, so devastating to his wife, Ann, and their three children.

Christmas came. Ann, alone at Christmas with her three little girls, sent a card to her pastor. The familiar handwriting on the envelope brought a lump to the pastor’s throat. As he held the card, he asked himself again the same kind of questions that he’d asked as he prepared for the funeral seven months earlier, “Why George? Why so soon? So able and with such promise. Would Ann, this young widow, be able to cope?”

Inside the card was a printed message, but far more important, Ann’s handwritten message, “Some say to me, ‘This firs…