Macomb Author's Faith Produces 'Mountain of Hope'

At age 36, Karen Dancey found herself faced with financial devastation, unemployment, the illness of a child and, unthinkably, her husband’s suicide. Suddenly a single parent to three young sons, this pastor’s daughter did the only thing she could think of to find some shred of hope in her gravest hour of despair; she summoned her faith and found a Mountain of Hope.

Dancey's first literary attempt, Mountain of Hope follows her journey of faith through which she found the strength to overcome the grief of her first husband’s death and experience joy in her life today.

“Over the years I’ve written bits and pieces of things and I’ve had people say, ‘You need to write a book,’ and finally last fall I just really felt like I got the kick from God to do so,” Dancey said. “There are so many people out there hurting, and just in need of hope and I knew it was from God that I was supposed to write this book.”

Released in June through West Bow Press, the book is Dancey’s first published work–quite a feat considering her previous writing experience was limited to the family’s annual Christmas poem and an article written shortly after her husband’s death.

Written in about three months, Dancey said the speed of the writing process belies the difficulty of recalling the subject itself.

“I spent much of it crying my eyes out,” she said. “I had to relive a lot of the hard parts as I wrote so I could put myself back there, and could put the reader walking beside me as I went through it.”

The journey starts in her childhood, as Dancey shares what it was like growing up as the daughter of former Pastor Paul–by far one of the happiest chapters to write, she said.

“The adventure continues as I married a U.S. Marine, had a child with a heart defect, dealt with my husband's unemployment, took a leap of faith and moved to Alaska, was shocked at my husband's suicide, and found comfort in the arms of Jesus as a 36-year-old widow with three young children,” she added.

Though Dancey will be the first to admit she hasn’t lead the “perfect wonderful life,” she said this mix of good and bad, coupled with the strength of her faith, has allowed her to share a message of hope with others facing their own hardships.

“My main purpose was I wanted to fill people with hope,” she said. “Whether you are dealing with unemployment or health issues with children, there is hope out there. I wanted to encourage others that you can go through something like this and come out and still be OK.”

Now 42, Dancey is remarried and lives with her husband, Lee, and their three sons in Macomb Township.

When asked to summarize her book, Dancey said: "Your difficult circumstances are a great opportunity to rediscover the power of a living hope. In other words, the bigger the difficulty is that we face, the greater the opportunity we have to experience God's modern-day miracles because God makes possible what is humanly impossible.  Now that is a hope worth celebrating!"

Where can you find Mountain of Hope?

• Immanuel Lutheran Church office
• Family Christian Book Store, 44751 Schoenherr Road,
  Sterling Heights, MI
• Faith@Work Catholic Books, Gifts & Cafe, 1977 E. Wattles Road Troy, MI
• Online at West Bow Press
• Online at Amazon, and available as a Kindle eBook
• Online at Barnes and Noble, and available as a NOOK eBook

Retail price: $13.95