What do a very rare, disfiguring illness, an unrelated cancer diagnosis, eleven surgeries in two years and starting a homemade candle company have in common? They are all a part of Mark and Karen Williams’ story — and their way to tell it.
The story began on a day that’s usually about family, presents and celebrating the birth of Jesus.
“December 2019, on Christmas Day, [Mark] was admitted to the hospital. We were there until December 28th. He ended up having his first surgery; that was his very first surgery to clean out his sinuses. They thought it was a sinus infection,” said Karen.
The next spring, Mark was diagnosed with unrelated kidney cancer. After a delay due to COVID-19, the tumor in his kidney was removed and it seemed like an ending.
The respite didn’t last long. A month later Mark had another sinus infection — or so they thought.
No answers
After an exam by a sinus specialist, he was sent to the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a tremendous amount of bone death in his jaw. Mark went through two more surgeries in the fall of 2020 to remove his upper jaws and teeth.
Eight weeks passed — and still no answers.
“Our doctor decided to pull his pathology reports again to see if anything else had shown up since the initial report, and that’s when they found the mucormycosis fungus,” Karen said.
Mark and Karen immediately went to UAB where the doctor said, “I don’t mean to scare you, but this is bad. This is really bad. You’re going to go home; you’re going to get your clothes and you’re going to go in the hospital — and I don’t know when you’ll get to go home.”
This type of fungus, also called black fungus, can have a high mortality rate with about 54% dying.
Over approximately the next six months, Mark made it through another surgery on his sinuses and a marathon 11-hour surgery to rebuild his upper jaw.
Throughout this entire ordeal, neither had asked God the common question, “Why?”
However, Karen had battled God during a two-week period when He asked her to surrender Mark’s fate to Him.
“I realized that, as a Christian, I had no choice but to surrender. It was hard to do but I will say that after I did surrender, God gave me a peace that I had not had.
“I knew that we would get through it,” she said.
‘Ongoing acceptance’
Mark had no complications and other than surgeries to debulk the tissues, and he hasn’t had to go back to UAB’s infectious disease team.
But what do candles have to do with this journey?
Karen still isn’t sure. Looking back, her inspiration might have been buying candles for Christmas presents in 2020.
Soon after that purchase, when facing one more delay for a necessary surgery after a year of unknowns, delays, life-altering diagnoses and surgeries — and knowing it wasn’t over yet — Karen needed a distraction.
“One night, it was dark when I came in from work. I just couldn’t do it,” she said, knowing she had to find another focus than sickness or the future — and she remembered the candles.
Karen told Mark about an idea to start making candles. Mark asked if she knew how, and Karen admitted she didn’t.
But they started anyway.
While she was thinking of a name and testing the candles, she kept running into issues. After recognizing she had made the company about her, Karen asked God to show them the name He wanted.
Blue Feather Candle Company was the result.
Psalm 91:4
“There were two reasons,” she said. “First [was] the verse Psalm 91:4. The only way we survived was by His protection and His faithfulness. Second, there are several meanings of blue feather, but one is acceptance — an ongoing acceptance.”
Karen felt God’s confirmation when she found two feathers the next week. Then it was confirmed in a deeper way.
“The minute that I quit wanting to make the candles about me, about what I wanted to name it — when I made the name about God — then all of a sudden, everything fell into place.
“I made the statement, ‘The candles will be a platform to tell the story of God’s goodness to us, to tell the story of the miracle, to tell the story of God’s graciousness.’
“The minute that happened, everything fell into place. I got six scents that worked immediately. It was remarkable to see God do that, but it wasn’t about me or the perfect name I was going to pick. It was about Him.”
Since then, Mark and Karen have been using the candles to tell the story of how they survived and about God’s protection and His never-ending faithfulness, even through what seemed to be a relentless storm.
To find out more about Blue Feather Candle Company and the Williams’ story, go to bluefeathercandlecompany.com
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