The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Woman finds peace, purpose after series of struggles

BY JENNIFER MULSON Special from The Gazette

We’ve all been caught in life’s thorny briar patches.

Denise Royal has been punctured by her fair share and lived to write a book about them, with the intention of spreading hope and resilience. “More Than Just Surviving,” her new self-published memoir, chronicles the momentous bumps that have dotted her life and the lives of those closest to

her: marital infidelity, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer and pancreatic failure. Her book is available online at amazon. com, barnesandnoble.com and deniseroyal.weebly.com, and in-person at Barnes & Noble.

“It’s a book not really about me, but about how we have comfort, peace and joy available to anyone who’s one of God’s children,” said Royal, a longtime Colorado Springs resident.

“And people go through hard things, and harder things than I’ve gone through even, but they don’t have hope, joy and peace. Right now we need peace in our world, with all the craziness going on.”

Royal’s military family moved 35 times during her childhood, finally plunking down in Divide. At 18, she was introduced to the new pastor at Cripple Creek Baptist Church, who soon became her father-in-law after she was introduced to his son, Jamie Royal. The two met on Christmas Eve and were married in August.

They had two children before Denise learned her husband had been unfaithful twice.

“I was angry and suicidal at first,” she said. “I couldn’t pray. I wouldn’t go to church. I felt like God had abandoned me. It wasn’t until later I realized God didn’t say I wouldn’t go through trials. He said he would be with me in the trouble, and he was.”

It took a long time, 20 months, before she was able to forgive Jamie, and it only came after he studied the Bible and found a verse that helped them heal. She details the repair of their marriage in her book, which Jamie approved of before he died 11 years ago, two months after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer. He was 54.

“(He said) it needs to be told because God restored our marriage,” Denise said. “He (God) made it better than ever. That’s part of what the book’s about. People need to know God is real, and he does answer prayers. And he just miraculously does things.”

At 38, after their relationship had been rebuilt and more than a decade before Jamie died, Denise started noticing odd quirks in her body, including horrible headaches and losing the left field of vision in both her eyes for a few hours. Scans revealed something wasn’t right. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease that affects the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves, and produces different symptoms in those who have it.

For Denise, MS causes muscle spasms that make her left leg drag; affects her speech; and gives her double vision and a stuttering finger, which made writing the book a challenge.

“I’m doing better right now,” said Royal, who uses a cane decorated with butterflies to walk. “It goes through peaks and valleys, remission and exacerbation. MS is not a death sentence. There’s still a reason that everyone is alive. We all can find a purpose.”

The hits kept coming after Jamie died. Two months after his death, her 29-year-old daughter was in pancreatic failure and given two years to live. Doctors offered her an experimental surgery that involved the removal of her pancreas and its duties transferred to her liver. She made it through: “Every day is a miracle that she’s alive,” Denise said.

Heavy helpings of prayer have seen Denise through each of the traumatic diagnoses and infidelities.

“I can’t even explain the peace God gives me,” Denise said. “Even with my husband’s diagnosis. We both had a peace that came over us.”

These days she spends her time comforting people who are also going through the hard stuff of life. They’re members of her church, but also strangers she meets in grocery stores and other random places. It’s part of her purpose for being here, she thinks. Once a strong introvert, her extroverted husband helped her come out of her shell, which allows her to make those new connections.

“There’s people God puts in our paths all the time,” she said. “God has emboldened me where I speak out more. I know people are hurting and I know almost everyone has something in their life. If we can look outside of ourselves and look at other people — how can we help them? Even if it’s just saying a kind word. Or saying a prayer for people.”

PIKES PEAK COURIER

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https://daily.gazette.com/article/282707641080589

The Gazette, Colorado Springs