What do you do when the person you've known since third grade — your childhood sweetheart, the father of your three young children — is suddenly gone?

Courtney Pray Duke knows that answer. Widowed at 29 after her husband Andrew was killed in a cycling accident, she was left with three small children, a shattered world, and a question that echoes through every devastating loss: Now what?

In this conversation, Courtney shares what it really looks like to survive the unsurvivable — not with platitudes, but with the kind of raw, practical faith that gets you through the next ten minutes. Her newly released book, And She Got Up: Shattered by Loss, Restored by Jesus, tells this story with the honesty that only comes from someone who has actually been through the fire.

Brian and Courtney come at grief from different angles — Courtney through deep Christian faith, Brian through the science of consciousness and evidence for life after death — but they find themselves after the same thing: hope that holds up and a reason to get back up.

✨ What it really feels like to lose your soulmate and not know how to be an adult without them
✨ How faith became a lifeline — not a cliché — in the darkest season of her life
✨ The jagged, messy reality of grief and why there's no timeline for healing
✨ How Courtney found new purpose and eventually remarried — and what she'd say to those who wonder if that's even possible
✨ Why every morning is a resurrection and today can be the day everything begins to shift

If you've ever asked...
💭 "How do people survive grief and faith being shattered at the same time?"
💭 "Is it possible to find love and purpose again after losing a spouse?"
💭 "How do I keep going when I can't imagine a future without them?"
...this episode is for you.
📖 Courtney's book: And She Got Up — available wherever books are sold
🌐 Connect with Courtney: https://courtneyprayduke.com

– – – Let's Connect: – – –
🤝 Join this channel to get access to perks
🔔 Subscribe for more
🔗 All my links: https://pages.grief2growth.com/profile
🔗 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/grief2growth
👛 Tip jar: https://www.grief2growth.com/tipjar
📰 Email list: https://pages.grief2growth.com/join-the-club
⏰ Free consult: https://grief2growth.as.me/30-minute-consult

Chapters:
00:00 🌱 Planted, Not Buried — Intro
02:54 💛 Remembering Andrew: Childhood Sweethearts to Soulmates
06:00 💔 The Day the World Went Black and White
10:00 🚑 The Phone Call That Changed Everything
12:00 🕯️ Walking Into a New Reality With Three Small Children
14:45 📖 Finding God in the Rubble — When Faith Becomes a Lifeline
19:00 🌫️ The Long Road: Five Years of Grief and Fog
22:30 ✨ Signs, Synchronicities, and Feeling Not Alone
25:30 🌀 The Messy, Non-Linear Truth About Healing
30:00 🍳 Cooking, Grief, and Unexpected Connections
34:00 💍 The Question of Loving Again After Loss
39:00 🌟 Living With Purpose: What Grief Taught Her About Calling
45:00 🧒 Parenting Through Grief — Raising Kids Who Remember Their Dad
49:00 🔄 Turning Your Pain Into Someone Else's Lifeline
52:00 🚦 The Light Will Turn Green — A Word for Those Still Waiting