Pastor’s wife · Caregiver · Author · Podcaster · Blogger · 87 years old · Still learning · Still growing · In many ways, she’s just getting started.
Welcome back to Lives That Inspire. If you missed the first post in this series, you can read it here.
Ann Coker is 87 years old — a widow, a writer, a woman of deep and enduring faith. In that first post, we sat with her through the caregiving years, through Bill’s Alzheimer’s disease, and through the grief that followed his passing in March 2024. If you haven’t read it yet, I’d encourage you to start there.
But today we go deeper — into the seasons that broke Ann open, the losses that left their mark, the work that has shaped and sustained her, and the legacy she is still, quietly and faithfully, building.
Because here is the thing about Ann Coker that I find so extraordinary — she has not simply survived the hard things. She has let them form her. And then she has sat down at her desk and written about them, honestly and without sentiment, so that others might find their footing too.
That is not a small thing. That is a life’s work.
On what has most deeply shaped her
Being a pastor’s wife was more appealing than when I was a professor’s wife (same husband).
Being a mother of four children and trying to shape their lives for God’s glory.
Being on staff at pro-life agencies. Being an editor and a writer.
Being a caregiver for my husband during his dementia.
Being a widow and having time for friendships.
Read that list slowly. Each phrase is an entire season of a life — much like chapters in her books. She simply names them, one by one, with the quiet confidence of a woman who has lived every single one fully. And in each of those seasons, I am sure there were highs and lows, challenges and unexpected delights — each one not a separate box, but woven into and shaping the next.
Many of us will find ourselves somewhere in that list — as mothers, as professionals, as women navigating friendship and calling and loss. I wonder — what would your own list include in this season?
And notice what comes last. Not loss. Not grief. Not the weight of widowhood. But this — time for friendships. There is a whole theology of gratitude in that single phrase. Ann reveals something quietly profound here — the importance of keeping watch for the joys, for the things that bring life and light, even in the hardest seasons. Ann still grieves. She has known real loss. But she also understands that two things can be true at the same time. We can have laughter in grief. Joy in times of loss. Her journey reflects this time and time again.
And this connects — rather beautifully — with how she and I actually first met.
On her life’s work, calling, and writing
In church work, I started as a children’s Sunday school teacher, then led Bible studies for women in the church. For several years I was on staff at three different pro-life agencies. My husband’s dementia provided the opportunity to collect his sermons and edit them for publication. I also write the scripts (intro and outro) for a podcast we started of his sermons from his last pastorate. I have tech helpers for that venture: Words of Endearment with Bill Coker. I have also published two books of my own. (see these below)
That phrase stops me every time — “my husband’s dementia provided the opportunity.” Most of us, facing fourteen years of caregiving, would not use the word opportunity. At least I am unconvinced I would. But Ann did.
She saw something in the hardest season of her life that most people would have missed entirely — a chance to steward Bill’s legacy, to gather his sermons, to edit them carefully and release them into the world. Four books. A podcast. Scripts written week after week, faithfully and lovingly, by the woman who knew his voice better than anyone.
She did not do it alone. But she was the one who showed up to do it.
And that is the thing about this kind of partnering with God — it makes all the difference. There are many who see a need, who feel an inner prompt, but get distracted or talk themselves out of it. There are many who mean to, but don’t. But those who choose to take up the mantle — who say yes to the call despite the fear, despite the doubt, despite not knowing how it will turn out — those are the ones who quietly change the world.
We may never see the ripple effect of what we do in our lifetime. But history is full of people who planted seeds in soil they would never harvest, who grew trees whose shade they would never sit beneath. They planted them anyway.
And so dear reader, and precious Ann, we so appreciate every seed you have planted along the way. Please keep planting.
On what life has taught her that she could not have learned any other way
Life is a teacher, and what I’ve experienced adds to learning about myself, other people, but especially about God. Whether I’ve gone through pleasant times or difficult ones, there’s always been a lesson to strengthen me and give me resolve to stay closer to God. Most of my experiences have related to family, even when I was a college student with four children or later when I worked at a pro-life agency. I found that God is always present to apply His Word to each situation. If that sounds general, instead of specific, the lessons learned were suited to each experience. I’ve learned from mistakes as well as victories.
I love how Ann holds both mistakes and victories — neither dismissing the hard things nor dramatising them. Her honest acknowledgment that life teaches through all of it, and that God has been present in every classroom, is both humbling and deeply freeing.
This reflection draws me upward. Nearer to Kingdom vision. Closer to the Father’s heart. Because instead of asking why — why me, why this, why now — Ann quietly and powerfully reframes the question entirely. Every experience, she shows us, carries the potential for a redemptive thread. Nothing is wasted. Not the mistakes. Not the losses. Not the seasons that made no sense at the time.
God has been present in every single one.
I’ve learned from mistakes as well as victories.
Ann Coker
On the seasons that stretched her, broke her open, and transformed her
Those times when both Bill and I lost our positions in jobs meant changes. Bill went through a few years of deep depression, and we took time out for counseling and healing. At my job, I was accused of insubordination. While I knew what I had done could have been better, I had no intention to disrespect my boss. I chose to retire early. Soon after that, Bill retired from pastoring, and that meant a new adjustment. These left us with a deeper reliance on God’s provision and protection. God was faithful to see to our needs.
Job loss. Accusation. A husband in the depths of depression. Counselling and healing — words that take courage to write, and even more courage to live through. She does not dress this up or explain it away. She does not reach for sentiment or spiritual gloss. She simply says what happened, and then says what it left behind — a deeper reliance on God.
These are the things few speak about openly, but many have had to quietly navigate. The seasons that happen behind closed doors. The ones that don’t make it into the conversation at church, or the update to friends, or the polished version of the story we tell later.
And yet — taking time to heal, to recover, to keep stepping forward — this is some of the most important work a person can do. Because in each of those experiences, every situation, every hurt or offence or misrepresentation or trouble — God is present. God cares. And when we choose to travel those hard roads with Him rather than away from Him, what we find on the other side is not just survival. It is a deeper connection. A deeper relationship. A faith that has been tested and found something solid underneath.
That is not a small thing either.
On when life was not at all what she expected
A few years after Bill’s retirement, while preaching at a camp meeting, he contracted Legionnaire’s disease. That put him in the hospital for 24 days. We found out the value of oxygen which feeds every cell in one’s body. During those days, I trusted more in God’s deliverance and knew that Bill would recover. While the disease took its toll, he became strong and adjusted well. I believe (not agreed by his doctors) that Bill’s lack of oxygen, due to the Legionnaire’s disease, was the start of his dementia.
That final sentence carries enormous weight.
Ann has carried a belief — not confirmed by doctors, but hers — that the illness that took Bill into hospital for 24 days may have been the beginning of the disease that would slowly take him from her over the next fourteen years.
She holds that possibility with remarkable steadiness. No bitterness. No raging against it. No demanding an explanation from God or from medicine. Just a quiet, clear-eyed naming of what she believes to be true.
There is something deeply instructive in that. How we hold the unanswered questions of our lives — the things that cannot be confirmed, the losses that cannot be fully explained — says everything about where our anchor is placed. Ann’s anchor has held. Through the uncertainty. Through the fourteen years that followed. Through all of it.
“How we hold the unanswered questions of our lives —
Karen Brough
the things that cannot be confirmed,
the losses that cannot be fully explained
— says everything about where our anchor is placed.”
On what has become more precious — and what has quietly lost its hold
My marriage and our family members have become more precious to me. Two of our children are in ministry positions, while two have turned away from faith in God. I have found that my vocal witnessing to these two sons will not bring them back to faith, so that conviction has lost its hold on my thoughts about them and words spoken to them. I trust God to fulfill his promise: “The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
This is perhaps the most tender thing Ann shares across this whole series.
Two sons who have walked away from faith. And a mother who has learned — through experience, not defeat — that her words will not be the thing that brings them back. So she has released that. Not given up. Released. And placed them into the hands of a God she trusts to be patient, and faithful, and not done with them yet.
There is a grief in that. And a faith in that. And they sit side by side, exactly as they are in real life.
If you are a parent carrying something similar — a child who has walked away, a relationship that prayer alone seems unable to mend — Ann’s example here is worth sitting with. She has not stopped loving. She has not stopped trusting God. She has simply stopped trying to be the Holy Spirit on His behalf. And in that release, she has found a peace that makes room for God to work in ways her words never could.
On what she would want those coming behind her to know
What truly matters is our relationship with God, for He is our Creator and Redeemer.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
Simple. Unadorned. Exactly as she has lived it.
After everything — the ministry years, the caregiving, the losses, the writing, the grief, the widowhood — this is what remains at the centre. Not a programme. Not a formula. Not an impressive list of achievements, though Ann has those.
Just a relationship. Just Him.
She watched Bill disappear slowly over fourteen years. She has held two sons loosely before God, trusting Him to do what her words cannot. She has sat in hospital waiting rooms, faced job loss and accusation, navigated depression and grief, and the long, faithful work of widowhood.
And after all of that — after every classroom life has put her in — this is what she would want those coming behind her to know.
Jesus. The way. The truth. The life.
There is nothing left to add to that. And so Ann doesn’t.
Instead, she gives us this — her life motto. The words she has lived and worked by. The words that have helped carry her through every season we have read about across these two posts.
“Do what is right.
Bill Coker · lived faithfully by Ann
Do what is good.”
Bill whispered those words — “Do what is right. Do what is good.” — in the fog of dementia. Not knowing names, not always knowing faces, but still knowing this. Still whispering what mattered most.
And Ann has spent her life doing exactly that. Collecting his sermons and giving them back to the world. Writing her own books with honesty and care. Showing up, week after week, to the quiet and faithful work of a life well lived.
The words were Bill’s. But the life that has embodied them — that is Bill and Ann’s.
This is the second of three posts featuring Ann Coker. In our third and final post, we end where Ann lives right now — in the view from 87. In the small things that still make her smile. In the deep things that have become most precious.
In a story so intimate and so beautiful that I have saved it until last. I hope you’ll join us here.
A Little More About Ann
ANN L. COKER is the widow of Bill, former pastor and professor. Ann received a BA in English from
Asbury College, Wilmore, KY, 20 years after graduating from high school in Mobile, AL. She is the
author of Journey with Bunyan’s Pilgrim, and a contributor to The Woman’s Study Bible. She has served
in three pro-life agencies. She continues to compile her husband’s messages for publication. Currently,
Ann lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her married daughter and husband. The Cokers have four
children, ten grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren. Ann’s hobbies are making greeting cards,
reading, sewing, and working on crossword puzzles.
You can check out Ann’s books, or connect with her and her rich material, below.
An Honest Caregiver: Facing the Reality of My Husband’s Dementia
Journey with Bunyan’s Pilgrim: A Companion Guide for The Pilgrim’s Progress
Ann blogs at abcoker.blog · Contact: al2.coker@gmail.com · Facebook: Ann Coker ·
Listen to Words of Endearment with Bill Coker on the podcast
There is so much more where this came from.
Yes, keep me in the loop ↗
Ann’s third and final post is coming soon — and the series is just getting started.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop as more stories are shared, I’d love to have you along for the journey
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