Jim Good

I'm an orphan from Ohio. My father died of a brain tumor when I was 12. Two years later my stepfather murdered my mother. Pushed her off a bridge. When the fall didn't kill her he jumped in the water and drowned her. I then fled to live with my grandparents. My grandfather suffered from Alzheimer's disease and later choked to death at the dinner table. Before being convicted, my stepfather changed the locks on the home my parents built, sold my household possessions at public auction, and cashed the life insurance policy he took out on my mother weeks before her murder. I received none of those profits.

I lost what seemed like everything. My father. My mother. My home. My youth. Decades of severe adversity followed. However, I eventually earned college degrees, which is rare for orphans.

Today, I'm the Christian author of Selected to Suffer. It deals with things we all suffer with in life, such as loneliness, stress, fear, worry, loss, courage and faith. I show how to overcome, or at least how to cope/endure. I'm also the founder of the American Orphan Association (americanorphanassociation.org), a 501(c)3 charity that helps America's orphans. (I define 'orphan' as an individual who lost both biological parents to death before his/her 18th birthday.)