Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
From Loss to Sanctuary: Marcia Earhart on faith, forgiveness, and rebuilding a family after unthinkable tragedy
Grief can steal your breath, your sleep, and the story you thought your family would live. Our guest, Marcia Earhart, invites us into the raw center of losing two sons—first in a sudden car accident, then, five years later, to murder—and shows how faith, daily surrender, and practical tools can carry us when nothing else makes sense. She shares the quiet rituals that steadied her nights, the way she borrowed strength to be present for her children, and why forgiveness became a discipline that unfolded at different speeds for each family member.
We explore how Marcia reframed “broken” into “broken open,” like a seed splitting so new life can rise, and how that insight shapes The Sterling Rose Sanctuary, a healing vision rooted in gardens, rest, and gentle, trauma-aware care. From avoiding video to reduce performance pressure for clients, to designing three- to five-day retreats for families to reset, the approach blends grief counseling, faith-based trauma support, forgiveness practice, and therapeutic horticulture into a grounded roadmap for recovery. Along the way, Marcia explains why she will not tether her peace to a court verdict and how choosing presence over distraction transforms suffering into purpose.
If you’re searching for grief support that honors your pace and your faith, you’ll find practical ways to breathe again, quiet rituals for nighttime anxiety, and a hopeful path toward rebuilding identity after loss. Marcia’s book, Gripping Grace in the Garden of Grief: A Place for the Heart, offers companion guidance, and The Sterling Rose Sanctuary welcomes outreach from anyone needing care. Join us, share this story with someone who needs it, and if our work serves you, subscribe, rate, and leave a review to help more people find a way back to life.
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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine. And today we've got a very special guest. Her name is Marta Earhart. And Marta's life story is not just one of trials, it's a testament. We walked through and emerged from deep grief, including the loss of two stones and overcoming 17 personal losses before adulthood. As a certified coach at Life Grief Trauma Brain and Mental Health, Mark learns our experiment experimental work done with practical strategies of offering listeners both compassion and actionable support. We've got the Heartbreak Ministry and as the founder of the Sterling Road Sanctuary weave together faith, therapeutic knowledge, and a roadmap for those wrestling with heartbreak. Martha, you know, wow, what a beautiful um introduction. And, you know, we had a little conversation prior to this, and you said a beautiful prayer over me. And uh I just want to thank you. That's uh a beautiful introduction and welcome to the show. We're so grateful to have you.
SPEAKER_00:Um it's a pleasure to be here with you, Joe. I'm excited. Um uh, first of all, for what you do, for the outreach that you truly are a warrior that is, you know, reaching out to others and saying you too can be a warrior. And I love that.
SPEAKER_01:100%. Well, apparently you're one as well. So um I'd like to jump into, you know, it sounds like wow, what a what a tragic story um losing two sons. And um why don't you tell us a little bit about you know these events that brought you to this ministry and this work that you're doing now?
SPEAKER_00:Well, our oldest son at 21 was in law school living with us and uh tragically died in a car accident uh second semester of his first year, and life changed uh immediately. Uh my younger children no longer were children. They had to grow up, their lives changed exponentially, and we died as a family. We died as to who we were, and we actually that's a passage that we chose to walk through to go on and receive that death because I didn't want to be, and my kids didn't want to be who that person was before because our oldest son Sterling was no longer going to be with us. And um, I think that quite often when we have loss, we want to hold on to what was. And therefore, we really cannot embrace where we are and where we need to be moving. So because of my training and because of um my deep faith and our family's deep faith, we turned our hearts to the Lord. We surrendered over, and it was a process of just going in every day, and every one of those emotions, every one of those painful, sorrowing tears that were shed, we just gave it over. And the Lord met us. He met us in that place, he comforted me, he uh poured out his love over me. Um, initially, I could not go to sleep at night because it happened. Um, we were notified on February 14th um on Valentine's Day. And his accident had happened um that night and um in the wee hours of the morning and or in the hours of morning. And when I laid down at night, I just I really wrestled, and the mind wanted to try and start resolving this this loss. And so I just said to the father, I need you right now. I cannot sleep. And he said, Put your head on my chest. Wow, and I laid my head in bed and I just I put my head on his chest, and and and physically I felt Jesus and Holy Spirit enshroud and cover me and hold me. And those nights that that happened, I went into this deep abiding with the Trinity. I don't know that I slept, but I woke up or got up the next day very rested.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So they were they were so present and they did not leave me. They were not gonna forsake me. Of course they wouldn't. They love me dearly as much as they love my son. And so as I did that, there were just a lot of exchanges that I had with Father, with Jesus, and Holy Spirit that really allowed for me to be strengthened by them. I did not have strength enough myself. I think to others, it looked like I was this victorious warrior. Um I really wasn't. I was showing the strength of the Lord as he embodies us in our weakness. And so I praise him for that because he's true and faithful to tell us that, you know, in our weakness, he's our strength. He really was. He really became all of that to me and for me. And honestly, I think even more so, he was allowing me to be able to have that strength, to be able to be present with my other children, to enter their pain, to be able to hear them and not just put my pain before theirs.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's it's incredible the the story you share. I I share in my own way. Um, and so many people that have been through very difficult times, whether it's their own health or a loved one, or you know, whatever. There's so many tragedies that can happen in life, but it's at those moments of complete weakness where you just literally say, I can't do it on my own. I need your help. Like that place where it's just okay. And uh, I had a similar experience when I was literally looking at at death's door, you know, I saw doctors coming in and I had to go, wow, I don't think it's my time, but if you want to take me, I guess, you know, I'm here I am. And um all of a sudden right then it's like, oh, you're okay. And uh and I I I started getting strong after that. So I I I it's it's uh it's it's it's wild because you're you talk about trying to make sense of things and you can't you can't reckon like why anything you can't you you can't see uh any sense in it because it makes no sense, you know? And yet you're able to find your feet, find your voice, and carry on.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and in that moment, and there's just this there's a really uh well, there's a lot of profound moments with the Trinity that I had, but one that was kind of life-changing for me is um I was crying, I was in worship, and just was the presence of the the Spirit of God was on me, and I just was feeling the depth of loss, and I kind of bent over, um, and my tears were falling on my feet. And the Lord, I it is just as if I'm looking at you. Jesus was right there, and he said, I have every tear, and he was crying, he was crying right beside me, and the tears were splashing on my feet. Wow, and he said, I'm collecting every tear with mine, and I'm cleansing you. Wow, and I was undone.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I could imagine.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, I can't at just the depth of his love and the depth of, and I and I even remember saying, because he he did weep with me every time, and I said, You're weeping. He said, Marsha, I love you. This is never what I would want for you or any of my children to experience. But death is a part of this life, right? And that's why I came to overcome it. I mean, we just had these wonderful exchanges that were just life changing in the spirit realm for me. And as he and I and I and again, he showed me the bottle, and the bottle was absolutely beautiful. It was just this radi, it radiated. I mean, the tears, his tears and my tears were like this radiance streaming from the bottle, and yet that that's cleansing me. It's it's the very thing he's using to renew me and to breathe life back into my lungs because in grief we know that it's very hard to breathe. We become very shallow in our breathing and his breath, I would feel his breath fill me, and I I could feel it, and I he was he was the one doing the breathing for me. And so it it's really holy ground, our grief stories. If we invite the Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit in, it is, and so I mean, as we dealt with that loss, our family was walking through the journey of dealing with and working through those losses, and we had gotten to year five, and it really was where a turning point for my youngest son, who was 12 at the time when his oldest brother had passed, and it had been such a difficult journey for him, and uh it was the first year we hit the end of September. Uh, the end of September is my oldest birthday, we just celebrated it last weekend, okay, and um and then our birthdays, my son, who's 12, and my birthday are on the same day in two weeks. And so the first year we hit this milestone where it didn't cause an implosion for my youngest son. And then literally within a week, my second son was murdered with his girlfriend from an ex-boyfriend who had been estranged for over a year and a half, and we started the journey yet again. Yeah, um, but the grace, the goodness of God was so present. And you know, people say, Well, sometimes you don't talk as much about the second. And I said, Well, what I need to say is that God had given us everything that we needed, so we went back to the well to pull up the yeah, and so we we we had him to go to, we knew and he gave us the refreshing. It doesn't mean that it was less difficult in the sense that it's still grief. Oh, yeah, but we had these things in our toolbox, right? That we knew how to access them and to let them come into us and make the changes necessary, and this time we had something else we needed to deal with, which was forgiving.
SPEAKER_01:Right, wow.
SPEAKER_00:So my daughter, who at the time, you know, she would have been 18, 19, maybe at the time, I believe 60, 60, 20, she was 20 at the time. Um, my daughter and I were able to forgive very quickly the murderer. But the struggle became for my husband and my youngest son. And to watch how the Lord did what he did with both of them to bring them to a place where they are able and we're able to forgive and and now pray for, pray for this man, pray for him in his life, pray for his salvation because there's no win-win situation. No, I mean, so there's you know, I and Joe, this is kind of how I look at it. My husband initially is like, I don't know how you can forgive him so easily, and I said, Because I've murdered in my mind.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I have. Yeah, I wish people I have wished people dead. I've thought, I mean, I'm I'm gonna be honest. I mean, you know, I and I because and I said, So I even though I may not have pulled a trigger, I may not have stabbed them with a knife, the thought was there, the action within my my framework, and God forgave me.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And who am I to not forgive, but to withhold that? And um that's your job, really. Well, it is, isn't it? All of our jobs to really be able to understand the depth of the forgiveness that we're given, to be able to extend that to someone else.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, so so we started in that journey and we pressed in and we started becoming yet again another family. Because again, we died to the family we had become in that five years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have to though. You can't, you know, we move forward, we don't ever go backwards. That's right. That's right. If you get stuck and you can't get past it, then you start going backwards, and it's it's it's so unhealthy, and you'll you'll destroy yourself eventually if you stay there. And the only way you can move forward is to let go of what you were, uh, because that's that's the only way. Wow, wow. So your husband and your youngest have finally come around and and have been able to let go and and and forgive. And this guy that did this, he was caught and and is being dealt with, or what what what happened with him?
SPEAKER_00:Uh he was not caught until a year later. He's been sitting he's been sitting in jail and has not gone before a judge yet.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So this is recent.
SPEAKER_00:This is five years. He's been in jail for five years. The incident happened six years ago, October 26th this year. Six years ago.
SPEAKER_01:That's still recent. I mean, that's just uh Yes. Yes. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So I mean, you know, people like no, it doesn't bother me because regardless of what happens in the court system, see, God has the last word.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm not worried about that. I'm not it's really not your business. No, I'm not hinging on that moment. I haven't been again. We can be sidetracked by from the father's work by the distractions of this world and the things that happen, and we can choose to see it for what it is, or we get lost in it, or we just go on and go, you know what? I want to do just like what you're doing, I want to do the Lord's work. I want to love, I want to be able to bring healing to other people, I want other people to breathe again and move again and live again the way they were created to. So from my own experiences, I can reach beside and behind me to really love on and bring people into that space and hold it for them so they can have healing.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's wild. It it seems that when somebody goes through a tragedy or you know, an extreme difficulty and accept the gift of being able to help people that have that same problem, it seems that people find you. That that, like, you know, you walk through wherever you're going, and before all this happened, you would connect with certain people and have things you might talk about. But now you're gonna probably find people that share something in common with your experience that just lock onto you and start talking to you. Has that happened?
SPEAKER_00:All the time. Yeah, but it happened even before, and I think the reason why is because I had the 17 losses by the time I was 18.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So people have always unpacked their story with me, Joe, no matter where I am. And my five kids started learning no matter where we go. Mom's gonna, you know, people are gonna tell their story, mom, and we just need to patiently wait. My kids are amazing because it did happen. And I just told my kids, I said, we always have to know that we stop and we give people space. Right. And so they've learned to be very gracious with their time and how they um and and how they are present with people when there's because people just they don't even know they don't even know my experience. And then start saying, I don't know why I'm telling you this. I've never told anybody this. And I just and I just nod and I said, It's okay, you're in a safe place. I do, I always assure them you're in a safe place because you know that part could start wondering, why am I doing this? Why I never do this, and it's okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I love that that's kind of and God, that's God. To me, that is God allowing them a someone who absolutely does them well.
SPEAKER_01:No, you're spot on, and that's you know, that's how God works. I mean, you know, you just go and if your heart's right and you're in and you say I'm I'm here to do the the work, it just unfolds, you know, and just up. Here you go, here's one, here's one. And so you've gone through literally most of your life with people sharing their stories with you, and of course, all these things that you've gone through. And then, of course, you know, this this experience um of your tremendous faith and and your family holding together. And, you know, this is these are things that tear families apart, frankly. And and instead, you know, your family has grown strong and and stayed that way.
SPEAKER_00:Um, how did you my my husband and I did struggle with our marriage for a while? My husband was living among the dead, I was living among the living. And we actually had that conversation. I said, um, I'm I need to live among the living. I mean, you can either join me, but I can't come among the dead. I mean, I just can't. So, you know, we were he he got to a point where he was like, You're right. And he was intentional in getting back in and making the decision, I'm gonna move into a direction where I'm in this marriage and I'm really present again. I'm in this family and I'm present. Um, and and in all honesty, we can't make other people work through their grief. And it was never my intention, but I just told them, I said, I can't, I can't do this. Right because you're you're you're going in the pit. And I'm not a I'm not a pit person. I don't I don't go and and stay in the pit. Um, I God's given us lifeline of Jesus to get out of the pit. I want to stay out of the pit as much as I can.
SPEAKER_01:Every day, every day, you got a few days. So you gotta you got a choice every morning. Like that's what I always say. I go, yeah, woke up, I'm here, I'm breathing, let's get out there and do it. You know, I have a gift of another day. And and you know, when we recognize that, you know, this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad. Yeah, and and that always rings in my heart, you know, when I wake up, it's like, okay, let's go, you know, and if I feel lousy, I say, well, too bad, let's get up and shake it off, you know, or maybe I'll lay and lay around a little more. But the intention is, okay, well, we're gonna get up as soon as we're a little better. And and we do.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you Well, it reminded me, let me just tell you, when you were saying that, it reminded me, and I know you know what I'm gonna say. For any of us who've battled that place that it's hard to get up, I just it reminds me that Lord, your mercies are new every day, and I have to choose to receive your mercy today, even though I feel like it was yesterday.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It it it's it's a mindset because the mind is what we battle.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And if we align our mind and have the transforming of Christ in our mind, then we can walk in that new day. Because we're we're coming into alignment with his truth, with what he has spoken, instead of listening to the lies of the enemy, saying, Yeah, it's just like yesterday, this is gonna suck, and you're just gonna, it's just gonna get worse. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's that's that's 100%. And and you know, it's a it's being present all the time is key to all of this, because you know, like you say, the the distraction is where the enemy gets us, you know, takes our mind off of being present and takes us to something else, whatever it is. Maybe it's a a a bad rut, or maybe it's a fear and anxiety, maybe it's a doubt and all of those things, and it takes us away from our present. And that's it straight up. You you nailed it. And and you know, so being mindful and present and uh connected, that's it, that's it. We stay there and and and we keep moving forward. Well, you went from all of this to creating a sanctuary and a ministry. I I I don't want to gloss over that. I know that this is a big part of this conversation. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that trans transition or how how you went to that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I didn't. God called it in 2017. Okay and he gave me a vision and he said, I want you to write it down. You need to start this ministry. He gave the name, he gave every room that is to be in this place because it is to be a physical place, but really aligned everything. And it's it's if on the Sterling Rose Sanctuary on the website, if people go under uh the Capitol campaign, it tells some of the rooms, what those rooms, what we do. Um, the Sterling Rose Sanctuary, Sterling was our son's name. The rose was his favorite flower because you cannot have the rose without the thorns. How significant is that? And that's one of the things he loved about the rose. There were many significant things that he had shared as to why he, you know, Jesus is the rose of Sharon. We can go on and on. But what we do is we help people unpack the thorns so they can appreciate each petal in that rosebud.
SPEAKER_01:And so this is a physical place.
SPEAKER_00:Not yet. We're raising money, but right now, um, I work with people all over the US and in six different countries, uh, ushering them into healing, delivering them from the pain and the trauma that they have lived in, into places of restoring their joy back with the Lord so they can live in their creative design, Joe. Because when people have not had that releasing, it defines their life.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so um it is wholly ground. And what I can say is to try and describe what that looks like. I feel like it cheats uh the Trinity of everything that they do to love well each child of the fathers. And so this it will be a physical place, but we embody that place, my children, my husband, myself. So we have traveled, we have gone to be with people who have lost a child, who have lost a spouse. We have been present when the news was being told to them that their child passed. Um, we have, you know, that space to be present when we need to be present. And people come to us, but most of my work is done on the phone, all over, and I'm not on Zoom. I don't usually see people. And the reason why is because if you're coming in with trauma, if you've got shame, if you've got guilt, if you feel like you've been abandoned or rejected, or you're feeling like you've come from a place of performance, my looking at you can shut those parts down. It can make them start performing or make them feel like they're going to be rejected if their true self is visible, if their true part. So I don't see most of my clients, but what I can tell you, the Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit sees them, and that's what's important, and he knows them by name and he meets them where they are and he heals them and delivers them into new life. And so the Sterling Rose Sanctuary was up and moving, and then when Mark was murdered, our second son, the enemy said, Well, that ended that. And the Lord said, No, the roots just got deeper. And I'm like, Yes, that's so cool. So, I mean, again, we have to listen and be in an attentive uh listener to the things the Lord has and not listen to the lies. So the Sterling Rose Sanctuary's intention is to see all people, believers and non-believers, healed. Because Jesus in Isaiah said he came to set the captive free. But first, he opens wide the prison door to set the captive free, and then in setting them free, he is close to the brokenhearted and he will heal the brokenhearted so that he can rebuild their ruins. How much better can that be? And so when we have a rebuilt ruin, we're better than we were before.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So the sanctuary, the place will actually be a place where an individual couple or a family will come for three to five days so that they can uh re be removed from the triggered trauma they're living in and have a place of reset, some resources, um, a place where they can feel that revitalization and that resurrection of life. It's gonna be where they can walk around outside and there'll be a garden. Garden's very important in scripture, and the garden's very important at the sanctuary for the Lord. And yep.
SPEAKER_01:We have here um a nonprofit that we call Gardens of Hope. And um we we have a little botanical garden and and we use it for healing and call it therapeutic horticulture, but it's yep, it's um a place where, like you said, people can walk the gardens and and you know let God do his work. And uh I'm right there with you. I think it's uh it's a beautiful, a beautiful uh plan, a beautiful it's it, it's I can feel it's already happened. Like it just it just needs to get the little bits to finish it off, but it's it's already.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we've been raising money, so we just need to finish raising the money. And you know, and I look at that and I think, Lord, this is gonna be wonderful because see, the Lord wants us to reconnect with Him outside, right? In nature, it people, even non-Christians, they reconnect because there's life and there's abundant life, and there's there's you know, new things growing. It reminds us that life comes from that that looks dead, and life comes from the seeds that are planted. And I don't say broken, I don't like the word broken. I know people say Ron Broken. No, we're broken open. A seed has to be broken open in order to start through that ground and to come and flourish. We're broken open, and we have a choice whether we want to keep on going up, Joe, in that dirt and come through and thrive, or we just want to die off in the ground.
SPEAKER_01:You nailed it. Wow, what a powerful story. And you know, a lot of times uh I have guests on and I say, well, you know, there's not really much more to say, but um, I would absolutely love to have you back and and continue this conversation as you know this develops and and as your dream and your your plan and your vision and uh God's plan is is unfolding.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'd love to stay connected and and you know have you uh come back again and share share more of the process. progress of this.
SPEAKER_00:I would love that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So you've unpacked so much. Is there um is there one thought that you would want to share with our listeners that sort of sums it all up in in in your thoughts or in your mind?
SPEAKER_00:Well I want to I want a tool. I I did write a book called Gripping Grace in the Garden of Grief, a place for the heart. It is a book that is a companion to someone who's grieving. And it's not a book that you just start and read from beginning to end. This really is about your individual journey of grief with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I want people to know He cares about the details. He cares about their pain. And he doesn't want anyone walking through their pain alone, Joe, and I don't either and whether they're a believer or not I work with unbelievers all the time. I want people to know they can call and we can be available to them to love on them and walk them through their pain. We were never meant to do this alone.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And so how do people find you? This is maybe the that most important piece of this is how how does somebody get a hold of you? I I assume there's going to be many people that listen to this and go, wow, I I I I need to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00:They can go on the Sterling Rose Sanctuary. It's under whether Sterlingrose Sanctuary dot us but even if they look up the Sterling Rose Sanctuary, it should come up and there will be a place on there where they can reach out get in touch and we will get in touch with them very quickly. Usually it's within 24 hours that we will get back. And um then they can read they can have resources we have resources on our site for them. And we just want them to have success in their own journey of grieving where they can walk this life out with purpose again.
SPEAKER_01:And and your book how does how is anybody able to access that?
SPEAKER_00:Yes they can go on Amazon Gripping Grace in the Garden of Grief Place for the heart is on Amazon. They can also go to our website and they can look at the book there and it'll take them right over to Amazon. So either way they should be able to have access to that.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful well Marcia this has just been an incredible journey I feel like we've just woven our lives together in a way and I feel connected and um just know that I I 100% support your work and and I'm grateful for your faith and and um just caring caring God's work. I mean I think that that's that's that's what we all need to do is to find our our purpose and it's not always the same. It's always connected it's always the same in some way but we all are given different tools in different ways and it's important that we find those tools and you have done that. So thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00:Well thank you so much for what you're doing and for having me on Joe. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Well it is absolutely my pleasure. Well this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host Joe Grumbine and I want to thank all of our listeners that make the show possible and we will see you next time.
