[caption id="attachment_3935" align="alignleft" width="298" caption="Joy Bennett"]<a href="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/joy-bennett.jpg"><img src="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/joy-bennett-298x300.jpg" alt="" width="298" height="300" class="size-medium wp-image-3935" /></a>[/caption]We're kicking off 2012 with a conversation with blogger and author Joy Bennett. 

Joy is, 'a Christian woman writing through grief and loss depression, and the overhaul of my faith in the face of suffering.'

Joy's oldest child was born with severe special needs and passed away in 2008 at the age of 8 and she shares her journey on her blog and this week with the sbpodcast family.

Joy describes herself:

<blockquote>I am a writer, mother of four, wife, reader, follower of Christ, bereaved, asker, and lover of rich soil, good food, music, and sunshine, listener... in no particular order. Two of my children were born with serious congenital heart defects, including my first. It was quite an initiation to motherhood. Between the two of them, we’ve been through six open-heart surgeries and countless nights in the hospital. This writer learned to give shots, insert feeding tubes, run i.v. pumps, measure in mLs, and pronounce words like tracheomalacia. I’ve blogged since 2005, writing on faith and doubt, family life (which is always humorous even with the medical spin), grief, and the depression that I only recognized a year after our oldest died at the age of 8. </blockquote>


<strong>Some questions to ask yourself while you listen ::</strong>

What tragedies or crisis in your life have shaped your faith?
What helped you through the crisis?
How can you use your experience to help walk others through their journey?
Do you believe that all things are good - even the "bad things" - or do you agree more with joy that "good can come out of bad things?"

<strong>Related ::</strong>

<a href="http://joyinthisjourney.com" target="_blank">Joy's blog</a>
<a href="http://twitter.com/WritingJoy" target="_blank">Joy on twitter</a>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/joyinthisjourney" target="_blank">Joy on facebook</a>
<a href="http://blog.worldvision.org/forbloggers/bolivia/" target="_blank">Bloggers for Bolivia</a>
<a href="http://www.deeperstory.com" title="deeper story" target="_blank">Deeper Story</a>

<strong>Music ::</strong>

<a href="http://www.stratospherik.com/stratospherik/3.html" target="_blank">Ureiel Asher - I Don't Know</a>