How God uses a firefighter widow’s pain to serve others with Susan Vandepol
What do you do when God gives you a calling you feel completely unqualified for, during one of the hardest seasons of your life?
For Susan Vanderpol, the answer came slowly, obediently, and with a lot of sweaty armpits in a union president's office. But what came out of it was a protocol for supporting widows after firefighter fatalities that was unanimously passed by one of the largest firefighter unions in the country, and eventually, a book.
In this episode I'm sitting down with Susan, author of Life After Breath, to talk about the remarkable and only-God story behind her book and the ministry that grew from her own grief after losing her husband, a Los Angeles city firefighter, in 2005.
We talk about how she went from a woman who didn't consider herself a school person to someone studying under a nationally known grief expert, how she ended up with Morgan James Publishing, and why she sees every open door, including PodMatch, as a continuation of the same call she heard more than two decades ago: speak for those who can't speak for themselves.
🎧 LISTEN AND LEARN 📝
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What You'll Learn
- Why the average age of widows these days may surprise you, and why it matters for how the church and community show up for grieving women
- How Susan developed a practical two-year protocol for fire departments and churches that gives people a simple, actionable way to support widows without needing a degree in grief counseling
- Why hybrid publishing through a partner like Morgan James can open doors for authors with important but unconventional messages that don't fit neatly into traditional marketing categories
- What it looks like to obediently pursue a calling one small step at a time, including making phone calls you're terrified to make, and trusting God with the outcomes
- Why testimony-driven topics like grief and widowhood can actually connect with audiences far beyond the Christian space, and how PodMatch is helping Susan reach people she never would have found on her own
📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED 📚
🎙 RELATED EPISODES 🎙
Serving widows through writing and podcasting
A PodMatch Overview (and why I love it)
Kim Stewart is a book marketing strategist for nonfiction authors and host of the Book Marketing Mania podcast. She helps you reach more readers as a podcast host and guest. When she’s not strategizing with clients or binge listening to podcasts, you’ll find her enjoying family time and indulging in coffee, caramel and Friends reruns.
