How Focus on the Family Canada helped one single mom through a dark and difficult season

After Colleen’s marriage ended, she went from living comfortably to raising two young children alone, dealing with financial and legal challenges, and feeling isolated from her friends. At the time, divorce and single parenthood was uncommon in her community, and many of her couple friends didn’t know how to help or even how to be there.

“It was amongst the worst times in my life,” Colleen recalls. “It becomes very isolating when you go through a separation; a lot of your friends who were married, they can’t really understand and some of them back away from you, and your whole life changes.”

During this time of isolation, Colleen’s sister gifted her a subscription to Focus on the Family Canada’s magazine for single parents. Suddenly, Colleen was given hope and the invaluable feeling that she wasn’t alone.

“I didn’t know one family at the time that was a single parent family, so to get that magazine and feel like you’re not alone because there are other families like you, it brought me tremendous hope, comfort, positivity and the belief in a better future at a very dark time in my life,” she recalls. “The articles I read showed me how even at the darkest or hardest of times of your life, things will get much better.”

Through regular encouragement and advice in the magazine, Colleen and her children found a way through that dark period in their lives. While the single parent magazine is no longer in print, Focus on the Family Canada continued to be a light for Colleen over the years. She regularly looks forward to the Focus on the Family magazine and has gleaned parenting wisdom from multiple books. She also purchased several cassette tapes with music that filled her soul.

“In the evenings after a hard day as a single parent, I would relax in my favorite comfy kitchen chair and listen to your specific tapes over and over again,” she explains. “In particular, there was one song that said ‘the sun will always shine again.’ It gave me such hope, comfort, peace and joy. I think my kids got tired of hearing the same songs played over and over again!”

After 11 years as a single mom, God brought Steve into Colleen’s life. “I found my soul mate, best friend and husband in a wonderful man. I think I prayed him into life! He is more than I ever expected but exactly what I asked God for,” she says. “And my dream of having four children came true with the addition of two stepchildren who lived full-time with their dad.”

As a blended family, they of course experience times of turmoil, especially at the beginning. “My husband and I made a pact that we would not allow our four teenagers to break up our marriage, and honestly, without that pact we might not be together today.”

Once again, Colleen knew she could turn back to Focus on the Family Canada for help: “The articles on blended families provided me with the faith and encouragement that we could get through the worst times.”

In addition to guidance for their parenting journey, Colleen and her husband also attended one of Focus on the Family Canada’s marriage seminars. It was something she’d always wanted to do, and her husband agreed to go, even though it wasn’t something he’d choose for himself. In the end, they both found it incredibly worthwhile.

“There were a lot of little things that supposedly would help to keep your marriage happier,” she explains. “One thing that stood out is that you should always go to bed within 20 minutes of each other, and most people don’t even think of that. That always stood out to me because so many couples just do their own thing, and go here and go there. For some reason, it really stood out.”

For the last three decades, Focus on the Family Canada has continued to be a lifeline for Colleen. From single parenthood to remarriage and blended family life, and now as a grandparent, she knows she can find practical, biblically based advice for every season her family walks through.

“Although my life has taken a 360-degree turn for the better, I still love and look forward to the Focus on the Family magazine and am forever grateful for the help, hope and comfort Focus on the Family Canada has given me over the past 30 years.”

She has since become a monthly supporter of the ministry, as well. “At a time in my life when I needed support because I had lost a lot of it, Focus on the Family Canada helped me through what I needed at the time, through simple measures—music, magazines, books.”