During her memorial service last Saturday, he told the audience that while she is physically gone, their five children are living reminders of her personal qualities. Hilken said his wife saw childbearing as her divine calling. If she could help them have a closer relationship with Jesus or better health, she wanted to take them from point A to point B if it made them feel better.” “Helping people was her greatest passion. She was insatiably curious and passionate and driven to be able to provide and create,” he said. “I sat front row to her life and still wouldn’t know how she did it. Hilken said he was amazed by his wife’s drive. Paige became a holistic health coach and certified personal trainer and she built a website and Instagram following where she shared her thoughts about faith, health, diet, probiotics, homeopathy, marriage, parenting and homeschooling her four eldest children, all under the age of 7. That’s also where she met her future husband, who has worked in ministry at North Coast Church since 2011. Recruited at 17 to play softball on scholarship at Concordia University, Irvine, she helped her team win a national championship and graduated magna cum laude at 19. Paige Rachae Hilken grew up on her family’s hay ranch in the small town of Fort Jones, near Yreka in Northern California. “This generation really values a pastor or pastor’s wife that says ‘I’m not OK and you’re not OK but that’s OK, because God is here for the muck and the mire and the mountaintop.’ ”
“When you’re trying to reach people, if you’re fake, it’s hard for them to relate to you,” he said.
The couple shared a belief that the more honest and vulnerable they could be in sharing their ups and downs with friends, church members and online followers, the more receptive the public would be to receiving their message about how faith can help. Hilken said his wife of eight years would have wanted the public to know the truth about her death. “Last night I was thinking ‘my wife is gone, this has to be a nightmare.’ But I get up in the morning and see people reaching out and donating and I almost have to pinch myself because it feels like a dream.” I feel so undeserving,” he said in a phone interview Aug. “Every time someone does something, I get floored and a little speechless about this radical generosity that I’ve never gotten to see firsthand before. Since then, it has raised more than $580,00, with donations from more than 4,000 donors in all 50 states and 13 international countries, according to GoFundMe spokesperson Jenny Perillo.Ĭhristopher Hilken, 32, said he has been overwhelmed by the public’s generosity and the thousands of supportive comments and promises of prayers that he has received online. 1, family friend Renee Finley launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $25,000 for Hilken and his children. Paige Hilken’s story has touched the hearts of people worldwide. “This happens in many families, so if we can be accepting and supportive, it acknowledges that mental conditions do exist.” “When faith leaders embrace this, it helps alleviate the sense of guilt people feel and it brings relief to families,” said Cathryn Nacario, CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness for San Diego and Imperial Counties. One San Diego County expert on mental health praised Paige Hilken and the church’s openness in addressing mental health and the subject of suicide openly, saying it could encourage many people to seek treatment and reduce the stigma associated with suicide. After she died, and with her husband’s blessing, North Coast Church openly shared information about her death to help reduce the stigma often associated with suicide and to share modern Biblical teachings on the subject.
0 kommentar(er)
