· Pastor’s wife · Caregiver · Author · Podcaster · Blogger · 87 years old · Still learning · Still growing · In many ways she’s just getting started.
I met Ann Coker through Chad R. Allen’s Bookcamp community — our shared love of all things writing bringing us together. For a number of years now, we have written together weekly, and in that time I have watched the way Ann writes with such discipline and devotion, the way she cared for Bill, loved her family, and simply — lived well. She is a dear friend and a woman I am so grateful to have as part of the ‘Lives That Inspire’ series.
Ann, I still remember meeting you at Bookcamp. You are one of those rare people who feel familiar straight away. Precious Ann, you are strong, fun, joyous, intelligent, kind, faithful, resilient, and so much more.
You inspire me. It felt only right that you be first.
And so, dear reader, meet the vivacious Ann Coker. I have a feeling you’ll warm to her too.
Lives That Inspire: The Journey of Faith and Caregiving
Ann Coker grew up in Mobile, Alabama, the oldest of four children in a Christian home where faith and church life were simply the shape of things. She married Bill Coker — a man who pastored small churches, then earned his PhD and became a professor at Asbury College, and later returned to pastoring for nineteen years in Indiana — and together they built a life that moved through Mississippi, Kentucky, and finally Indiana, raising four children along the way.
Bill was more than Ann’s husband. He was her greatest spiritual influence — a preacher whose sermons she has spent years carefully collecting, editing, and releasing into the world through four published books and a podcast called Words of Endearment with Bill Coker. He was, by every account she gives, a man of deep and lasting faith.
And then, slowly, the man she knew, began to disappear.
For fourteen years, Ann cared for Bill through Alzheimer’s disease. She has written about that experience honestly in her book An Honest Caregiver: Facing the Reality of My Husband’s Dementia, with a foreword written by their daughter Becky, (the nurse with whom Ann and Bill shared a home during those years.) It is the kind of book that could only be written by someone who has actually been there, someone who has walked the walk, someone who has not only survived but found places to flourish from within it.
Ann was also a contributor to The Woman’s Study Bible — a Thomas Nelson publication that has sold over four million copies worldwide. She is not a woman who seeks the spotlight. But her words have quietly reached further than most of us will ever know.
I asked Ann to share a little of her story. What she offered was deeply honest, theologically grounded, and full of the kind of wisdom that is only grown slowly — through real life, real loss, and a faith that keeps on stepping. I’ll let her tell you herself.
On what she knows about God now that she did not know when she was younger
When I was younger, I assumed more about God, that He would see me through regardless of the situation. Now I think through each challenge, but I have more real trust that God will see me through. It’s no longer an assumption. Fears about the future are my greatest struggle, but I go to God’s Word and I remember what He has done in my past, assured that He will continue to get the victory. God does not change. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). And I am deeply loved by Him (John 3:16)
That distinction — between assumed faith and earned faith — is one of the most quietly profound things Ann says. Young faith can be easy faith. Comfortable faith. A faith that hasn’t yet needed to hold some of the heavier seasons of life.
But Ann has been in places where she genuinely didn’t know if she would make it through.
And she did. And now she knows.
“It’s no longer an assumption.”
Ann Coker
She knows that she knows that she knows. And that is a stunning and freeing space to have reached.
That time and experience have taught that God is faithful, present, and personal.
And whatever comes along, He will always see us through!
And for Ann, this was then put to the test as she walked through the hardest seasons of all.
On the seasons of grief and hardship that have most deeply shaped her
For me, a season of grief is associated with my husband’s 14 years of Alzheimer’s disease, for I was his primary caregiver. We lived with our daughter and her husband and she is a nurse, providing care and advice. During those years, I depended on God, not only for His guidance, but for His forgiveness when my care turned sour. That left me with a greater appreciation of God’s grace and love.
When Bill died in March of 2024, people expressed sympathy for my loss.
I did not lose Bill, for I knew where he was.
He was no longer with me, and that was my loss, but his influence carried me through that journey of grief.
What that season left me was a deeper relationship with my Lord and Redeemer.
Ann, I so greatly appreciate your authenticity – and I love the way you expressed that – when caregiving goes sour. It’s not all sunshine and lollypops – that’s so authentic.
Read that again.
I did not lose Bill, for I knew where he was.
Ann coker
Not denial. Clarity. The kind that only comes from a faith that has been tested over decades and held. Not only held but in Ann’s words, planted with her ‘a deeper relationship’ with her Lord and Redeemer. Those beyond hard moments in time, seasons and challenges can bring about such core level fruit – not that that is the focus while you are walking it – but it’s a fringe benefit of having walking through the fire, and chosen to trust amidst it.
On what genuinely helped her cope and keep going
During those years of caregiving and grief, I knew I could always turn to God for help and forgiveness. Our family was also a big help, especially our daughter and her husband, with whom we lived. Our three sons and their families (who lived in other states) visited us often, and they saw the downward progression of the dementia. They faithfully kept in touch. Friends visited us from our former church, where Bill had pastored.
Ann makes a key point: the value of community. of family and of faith during seasons of grief and caregiving amidst it, is not a small thing. Who we allow into that raw space can make or break our journey through it. Village matters!
Through my own years of autoimmune and grief seasons, the value of my precious village, have proven their worth greater than gold. Oh yes, Ann, we agree with you!
On the unexpected comfort that found her along the way
Throughout those years of caregiving, Bill was affectionate, and he would blow me kisses. While he had forgotten names of family and friends, only twice he did not know I was his wife. Bill also exhibited a good sense of humor, and he made us laugh and smile at his antics. I was grateful for his presence, even though his intellect had changed. Without a doubt, I knew Bill’s relationship with God had not changed. Early in the process, I heard him pray, and in his frequent talks he would say, “Do what is right. Do what is good.”
The image of Bill — mind fading, name by name, but still blowing kisses, still whispering what mattered most — is the kind of intimate image that will stay with me, Ann. Thank you. As someone who has watched and is watching loved ones walk this hard, hard dementia line – this captures it perfectly. The moments of lucidity, of the true them being expressed. What a precious memory of Bill’s heart and his love for Ann.
It is also the heart of what Ann captured in An Honest Caregiver: not a polished account of caregiving done well, but an honest one. This gives carers all over permission to not have it all together all the time. It permits them to travel the range of days, emotions, and wrestle that is traveled moment by moment.
On what she would want someone in the thick of ordinary life to remember
God is faithful to all His children. If we trust in God, He will redeem, deliver, and guide us in all our ways.
When we give our disappointments and joys to God, He will remember us with His promises from His Word.
God is our sure foundation and our only hope in this world and in the world to come.
“God is our sure foundation,
Ann Coker
and our ONLY hope in this world…”
Ann is now 87, a widow, a great-grandmother of fifteen — with triplets among them — and she is still at her desk. Still reading. Still writing. Still releasing Bill’s sermons into the world. Still showing up to church, to Bible study, to the quiet work of faith.
She isn’t talking about a faith that has always been easy. She’s talking about something richer than that — the difference between a faith inherited and a faith earned. Between assuming God will come through, and knowing He will, because you have watched Him do it, again and again, through the hardest years of your life.
She does not do it alone.
This is the first of three posts featuring Ann Coker. There is so much more of her story still to come. You can read Post Two 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.
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Ann shared so much more than I could fit here — and she is just the beginning. This series is gathering the voices of some of the most quietly extraordinary people I know — faith giants who largely fly under the radar, whose wisdom deserves to be heard. 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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