Man shares emotional story about finding hope and healing after tragedy

Steve Ullmer is the proud father of four sons from Sherwood, Wisconsin, who endured a painful tragedy but managed to overcome it based on his hope.

38-year-old Steve and his wife, Wendy, met each other in high school and stayed together for 13 years. During that time, their love did nothing but grow strong. Wendy was so significant in Steve’s life that she even helped him overcome an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

According to him, their marriage was far from being perfect, but his life was never better. In a post he wrote for Love What Matters, he shared details about a photo showing the entire family together.

He said that they had welcomed four “amazing” boys by that time, that Wendy was as healthy as a 36-year-old woman could be, and that they had just moved to a new house and were ready to live the next chapter of their life together.

One night, Steve heard that Wendy took a strange gasping breath, so he tried to wake her up by shaking her and screaming her name, but nothing seemed to work. He called 911 and performed CPR until help arrived. She passed away on March 17, 2017.

He revealed that the days following Wendy’s passing were terrible, but that a message of encouragement from a person he had never met made things a lot easier. It was Erin Stoffel, a woman whose story became popular in 2015.

Erin was the victim of a violent crime that left her husband and daughter dead. The family went for a walk on the Trestle Trail Bridge in Menasha, Wisconsin when a man shot Erin’s husband dead. The criminal shot one of the woman’s daughters, and Erin, too, and left the scene.

Steve remembered that story when he got the letter from Erin and realized that if Jesus had helped her to go through that horrific situation, He could do the same with him, too. Soon after that, they met each other, and things were going so good with them that they started a relationship.

Their children also got along without problems, and they had solved the problem of them growing up without a mother/father. By late-June 2018, the couple got married, and they have lived happily ever since.

“Every day we embrace the chaos that comes with a blended family of 8. It’s beautiful, it’s messy, it’s amazing, it’s hard. It’s life. Grief will always be a part of our story, but it doesn’t define us,” revealed Steve.