Sheila Trumpy and Shelley Thiessen

Bereaved mother finds hope in the Psalms

By Blake Sittler

SASKATOON — Holy Spirit Church and McClure United Church are co-hosting a three-night series of talks on the topic of Suffering and Hope. The first session April 12 was held at Holy Spirit and attended by 65 parishioners from both churches.

The first speaker was Shelley Thiessen who spoke about the pain of abusive relationships.

Thiessen is the mission outreach worker at Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry. She is a married lesbian with three children, and is a lay leader in the United Church.

“I was born into abuse,” she began. She was physically and sexually abused by family members and by the age of 10 was a prostitute in Winnipeg.

“In all of that horror, I found hope in God,” said Thiessen. “God told me I would survive and he gave me a new family.”

Thiessen found support at a Mennonite church across the street from her house, where she was befriended by the minister and his wife.

“I didn’t have a father at home who cared for us but I had one at church who did,” said Thiessen. “I can hold my head high because I had people behind me who tell me God loves me.”

Sheila Trumpy and her husband Dennis lost their daughter Rachel two years ago to a sudden illness.

Trumpy began her presentation by reading an article written by one of their other daughters, Alana, that was published in the Globe and Mail as a reflection on the Easter season.

In the article, Alana admits that her mother’s hope that all her children would develop a personal relationship with Jesus made her cringe. But the Good Friday of the year her sister died, Alana found hope in faith.

“Suddenly heaven has a face, Rachel’s face,” Trumpy read.

There was a time after Rachel’s death, Trumpy said, when she and Dennis were so weak and emotionally drained that they were not able to be present to those reaching out to them. Hope came in the form of the strong friendships that she feels God sent her.

“Hope did not arrive on my doorstep like a baby,” she said. “I was the baby arriving on the doorstep of hope.

“Hope rose up to me every time I read the Psalms: the voice of our humanity rising to God; sometimes angry, sometime lamenting, sobbing, exultant, honest prayer.”