Scars That Serve: How grief gave rise to a life of compassion

Sometimes you don’t realize the power of your story until it meets someone else’s pain.

For Denise Loraditch, that realization came not in comfort, but in the dust and desperation of homeless camps—places that mirrored the ache she had carried since childhood. What she discovered there was this: the very wounds she once tried to survive had become the doorway through which hope could reach others.

Denise, a visiting volunteer from Grants Pass, Oregon, joined a ten-day outreach alongside Paul Abbott with a simple goal—to serve. What unfolded was something far deeper. As she walked into encampments day after day, building friendships and listening to stories, she felt an unmistakable pull. The faces before her were not strangers. They were reflections of her past.

When Denise was four years old, her parents divorced. In the aftermath, her father spiraled into addiction and homelessness. As a child, she carried a weight no child should bear—constant fear for her father’s safety and an unrelenting hope that he would one day come back to himself.

For years, he struggled. Then, briefly, he found his footing. He became sober. He got an apartment. It felt like redemption was finally within reach.

It was short-lived.

One night, he invited another homeless man over for dinner. Alcohol entered the room. An argument followed. A fistfight ended Denise’s father’s life.

The grief that followed was crushing. Her father was gone too soon, and the pain of his loss settled deep within her. But what happened next revealed something rare: dignity in the face of tragedy.

Denise’s community showed up in force for her father’s memorial. Though the state typically provides only the most basic burial for unhoused individuals, local bars collected donations to help Denise bury her father in a beautiful coffin. The director of the town’s most respected cemetery—once her father’s college roommate—cut costs in half. Against all odds, her father was laid to rest with honor.

Still, grief lingered.

The man responsible for her father’s death was charged with manslaughter and released after three years. When Denise ran into him around town, the pain resurfaced—raw and unresolved.

It wasn’t until ten years later, while volunteering at a Gospel Rescue Mission during their annual Thanksgiving dinner, that everything changed.

Denise was assigned to serve one table. As she approached, she realized the man sitting there was the same man who had killed her father.

She froze.

In that moment, she prayed. And in response, she felt God prompt her to do the unthinkable—to forgive him.

With trembling obedience, she served his meal and said, “I want you to know that I forgive you. But more than that, God forgives you.”

Instantly, the weight she had carried for a decade lifted. That Thanksgiving became her favorite—not because it erased the pain, but because it finally released her from it.

Months later, Denise received word from the mission’s director: her forgiveness had changed that man’s life. He left the streets, enrolled in college, and began supporting himself.

That moment reshaped everything.

Denise’s time in the camps awakened something that had always been there—a calling born from loss, fueled by compassion, and grounded in lived experience. She returned home ignited, resolved to keep showing up for those still suffering.

“I feel encouraged, strengthened, and more prepared than ever,” she says. “I know now what God has always been forming in me.”

Today, Denise leads Need Meeters Ministries in Grants Pass, Oregon—a living tribute to her father and a tangible expression of her belief that no one should be forgotten. Her heart beats for the questions many avoid: Are they cold? Are they hungry? Does anyone see them?

As the daughter of a man who lived and died unhoused, Denise understands a truth many overlook: the person on the street is someone’s father. Someone’s brother. Someone’s child.

Everyone has a story—often rooted in trauma. And healing begins when we choose compassion over judgment, presence over distance, and love over fear.

Denise’s life is proof that suffering does not have to be the end of the story. When surrendered, it becomes the very thing that sets others free.

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