The Power of Divine Grace
Welcome to the Foundation for Grace, I want to share with you the power of Divine Grace and how she works in our lives. A year ago Anna Redgate was graciously brought into my life by a cherished friend and participant of my work who I hadn’t heard from in years, Craig Bachrodt. He called and shared how his friend Anna had experienced the most unimaginable tragic loss of her life five years ago, at 6: 00pm on January 1, 2000.
I learned that Anna was taking an evening walk and going over the Blue Heron Bridge with her 9 1/2 month old daughter Grace safely buckled in the double jogger she was strolling, happily sitting along side her 2-1/2 year old brother Whitaker, when a drunk driver on a 3 day drinking bender came barreling through the light, across the lanes running into a parked car waiting at the light sending it careening out of control directly hitting and instantly killing her baby Grace, literally ripping her precious daughter and Whitaker’s beloved sister from their lives. Since that devastating moment she has spent 5 years focusing every waking minute on the needs of everyone around her without a moment to spare for her own pain.
Craig wanted Anna to come to San Diego to participate in Debbie Ford’s Shadow Process, a life changing emotionally healing three day spiritual retreat which I co-lead. I spoke with Anna on the phone, and we felt the immediate warm connection of kindred spirits. We made plans for her to join me in San Diego one month later. For the very first time she was going to focus on herself and her own healing completely unplugging from her outside world.
I remember on the third day of the Shadow Process, the day of embracing her light, Anna proclaimed she is a writer, speaker and griefhealer. Little did we know at the time she would three months later be visiting me in South Beach, Florida, and as we sat eating breakfast at The News Cafe on Ocean Drive, I would say to her you should start a Foundation for Grace. Without a moment’s hesitation she said, “I am going to do that!” After all , for the past five years she had devoted herself to her community of Ocala and Marion County as an advocate for social responsibility, speaking monthly on the Victim Impact Panel at the courthouse for court appointed DUI offenders, instituting and running 5K runs in Grace’s name to raise money for MADD, and sitting on local boards while being an art teacher and raising her two children.
Since that fated breakfast, I have had the privilege of witnessing and supporting Anna do what some would say is humanly impossible to have accomplished in such a short period of time. She has had numerous articles written about her mission, spoken to many groups, met with Senators, judges and other community leaders, she has gathered an impressive group of board members who meet monthly to hold and forward her profound vision of being a Global Resource Center for Grief. She has worked with a web designer and used an equity line on her own home to build a website to become the home for the Foundation, which got done in three months and is opening its doors to you on the very day I am writing this. She has returned to the community where Grace was killed and spoke at their Victim Impact Panel, and sat with families who were grieving from tragic loss of their own children.
Today she is mobilizing a massive memorial march for this Sunday, tomorrow at the Blue Heron Bridge. She is calling the community of West Palm Beach to join in a peaceful vigil to honor the lives of two beautiful mothers, Linda Taylor and Cynthia Andrews, who were doing their morning walk at 6:00am last Sunday and were senselessly struck down on the very same bridge where her Grace was killed. The amazing irony is she already had months prior been scheduled to meet a film crew planning to shoot her story at that very same bridge, The Blue Heron Bridge, on that exact Sunday, October 1st, at 6:00pm for the first time in six years!
So it has become clear that her mission, with her partner Grace, to grow strong communities and provide the necessary resources for anyone in the world grieving, is a divine mission, and she is being led by a power so much greater than herself. It has been my joy to be in awe of what one woman can do when she is fueled by a holy purpose. I believe Anna Redgate is meant to make the kind of impact that John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh, has brought to our world. These are ordinary human beings who are moved to use their pain , suffering and grief to save our world and make it a better place for us and our children.
I welcome you to our global community, with loving Grace,
Rachel Levy, LMHC, MCIC
Master Integrative Life Coach, www.debbieford.com
Spiritual Leader, Editor and Board member for the Foundation for Grace
