Kristen Sauder, RIP

Kurt's wife Kristen passed yesterday after a 13-month battle with cancer. Visitation is Friday and Saturday morning before the 11 AM funeral.

She was a good friend and a great minister of the Gospel. She was a beloved wife and mother. She ...will be greatly missed by Kurt, their kids, their extended family-- and the Kingdom.

I'll miss her infectious smile and enthusiasm, her wisdom on effective ministry, her knowledge of the Bible, her passion for making disciple-makers, her warm/sweet/gentle spirit, and so on.

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Here are messages from Kurt before the visitation-- here and here-- and Kristen's final blog post.


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Two songs come quickly to mind these days. First, an oldie but a goodie: Michael W. Smith's "Kentucky Rose".

I always think about this song when God calls his faithful home "too soon". It always makes me tear up. But these days, I'll have to avoid listening to it (too much), unless I want to keep crying/sobbing like a baby.Praying for Kurt and his family as they grieve and celebrate their Kentucky Rose...Second, I sent Tenth Avenue North's "Worn" to Kurt and Kristen awhile back, for those inevitable "dark nights of the soul". (Interestingly, they'll sing this song in Freedom Hall on Friday night at WinterJam.)

I love the line, "I'm worn, so Heaven come and flood my eyes." Indeed. We need that eternal perspective always, but especially in the difficult times.

Kristen was "worn", at least physically. Now she's healed and whole. Kurt and his kids have been and will likely be "worn" off and on in the coming days. But we know that our faithful God will send them an extra measure of His presence.

Praying for Kurt and his family as they struggle to "breathe" the next few days and in the coming weeks/months.

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*Happened* to read about William Whiting Borden on Thursday night in Wiersbe's 50 People Every Christian Should Know (a really nice little mini-bio, semi-devotional book, by the way). Had never heard of Borden before...

Borden died at 26. He was a millionaire's kid who did some great things at Yale in terms of ministry and was preparing for the mission field (to Muslims in NW China), but got sick and died while training in Egypt.

Wiersbe had two great lines that reminded me of Kristen:

Why should such a gifted life be cut short? One of Borden's friends, Sherwood Day, said: "I have absolutely no feeling of a life cut short. A life abandoned to Christ cannot be cut short."

"It is not the length of a person's life that matters, but the strength of one's influence for God."

So, too, with Kristen.