Women & Work: Stepping into Kingdom Productivity #35 Vaneetha Risner, Author, Speaker & Sufferer
Vaneetha writes and speaks about finding hope in suffering. Her memoir, Walking Through Fire as well as her devotional, The Scars That Have Shaped Me both encourage readers to turn to Christ in their pain. Some of her greatest joys are being a wife to Joel and a mother to Katie and Kristi, and you can find her embarrassing them in Raleigh, NC, or online at vaneetha.com. Vaneetha writes regularly for Desiring God and has been featured on Family Life Today, Joni & Friends, and Christianity Today.
She also has an upcoming Bible study with Lifeway Christian Resources that releases in May of 2023 entitled Desperate for Hope: The Questions We Ask God in Suffering, Loss, and Longing.
In this episode, Vaneetha shares her life story which includes:
- Her polio diagnosis at 3 months old
- Her years of living in a hospital as a child and how that affected her view of God
- How she came to faith in Christ
- How she dealt with divorce and forgave her husband
- Her grief and God’s supernatural comfort after several miscarriages and the loss of her newborn baby
- How the Lord brought her to remarry
- Her more recent debilitating diagnosis of post-polio syndrome
- How He has used all of this to bring her to her current calling of serving others through writing and speaking
Recommended Resources from Vaneetha: