A Northern Ireland mum says the heartbreaking loss of her two young daughters in childhood led her to write about how pain can somehow become a springboard for hope.
Writer Catherine Campbell says her own terrible bereavement taught her how brokenness and hopelessness are the best places for growth and triumph.
It's why she chose to highlight people in the Bible who faced deep disappointment, were rejected or considered huge failures in their time in her latest work.
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Two of Catherine's three children were born with profound disabilities and this experience provided the catalyst for her literary journey. Many of her eight books focus on issues surrounding "life’s tough stuff" and what the Bible has to say in response.
Catherine previously worked as a nurse but now spends her time writing and speaking. Her working life started as a nurse in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.
She continued nursing on a part-time basis for the next few decades until she hung up her uniform for the last time in 2005 to devote more time to writing, and to be able to keep up with her diary of speaking engagements, as well as the responsibilities of being a busy minister’s wife.
A native of Belfast, Catherine now lives in Newtownabbey with her husband, Philip, after he retired as minister of Coleraine Congregational Church four years ago.
Family is vitally important to Catherine and Philip, who have three children, two daughters, Cheryl and Joy and a son, Paul.
Tragically Cheryl and Joy, both of whom had severe learning disabilities, died at a young age. Cheryl passed away at the age of 10 in 1989 while Joy died aged 13 in 1999.
Catherine has written a number of books about her family and how they have coped with the loss of Cheryl and Joy including ‘Under The Rainbow’ and ‘Broken Works Best’.
In her latest book, 'God Isn't Finished With You Yet', she retells the stories of five of the most broken, socially isolated and rejected people in the Bible.
But as Catherine reveals in her retelling of five Bible stories of people who faced pain, failure, rejection, and feelings of worthlessness and unproductivity - God is in the business of restoring broken people, and using the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Her book is written from an intimate knowledge of heartbreak and bereavement, and the wondrous realisation that although we may be “crippled by sadness and sorrow, God does not leave us that way”.
It features a vivid, historically rigorous and sensitive retelling of the stories of Abigail, John Mark, the Samaritan woman who Jesus meets at the well, Judah, and Anna and Simeon.
Abigail was trapped in marriage to a fool; John Mark ran away from his friends; The Samaritan woman faced shame in the society of her day; Judah sinned against Tamar and Joseph while Simeon and Anna had the challenges of old age. But God hadn’t finished with any of them.
Catherine says that over the years, she has experienced first-hand how God can take our suffering, even our sinfulness, and produce something positive “from what we believed to be the ashes of our lives”.
She told Belfast Live: “Cheryl and Joy were very special children. We live in a society that views your worth by how you look and what you achieve whereas it's remarkable how two little girls who couldn't do anything for themselves - walk, talk or even hold a toy in their hand - are still spoken of all these years later.
"And they have been used to bring hope to others so there's worth in other ways apart from what we achieve and I know that has had a big impact on our son Paul, who is now a father himself.
"All of his life, he's looked at people for who they are and not what they can do and I think that is one of the legacies that Cheryl and Joy left."
Catherine added: "The book was published in late September and so far the response has been very positive. The idea behind my writing is really to encourage people going through tough times and I just hope the books help those many people.
"What is underpinning my latest book is how there are times whenever it's our circumstances that define us and we allow them to define us. I've been referred to in shops as 'that woman who had two children die' but we're more than the sum of our circumstances.
"My faith in the Lord Jesus has helped me to use what has happened to me to be a help to other people and encourage them that there is life.
"That doesn't mean to say that you're never sad or you don't cry. Standing at the graveside even all these years later still makes me very sad but it also gives me the hope that God gives us for a future life with him.
"Now is not all there is such a beautiful promise and it has always been underpinning my life. Christmas is a difficult time for many people but my view is that if I didn't have Christmas, I don't have any hope for the future so my Christian faith is very important to me."
‘God Isn’t Finished With You Yet’ by Catherine Campbell is published by IVP and available here.
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