Roxanne M. Smith

Roxanne and her husband Andy have spent years in a medical odyssey looking for help for severe back pain. She had four major spine surgeries and countless traditional and alternative treatments to try to alleviate her life-altering pain. Even after the best attempts by modern medicine to provide relief, she has constant and severe pain that continues to be disabling and forces her to lie down more than twenty hours per day. Against all odds, she and Andy were able to have a child, and Roxanne assumed the role of "Mom"--disability and all.

Roxanne was born and raised in Iowa, the fourth of five children. She enjoyed an active childhood, involving participation in music and sports. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa, graduating summa cum laude. After two years of graduate school, she attained her Graduate Certificate in Physical Therapy, also from the University of Iowa. Roxanne worked as a physical therapist, both in inpatient and outpatient settings, for five years before becoming disabled. She married Andy Smith in 1990.

Roxanne is a contributing member of a local church, where she is a trained Stephen Minister,a form of peer counseling. She has published articles in a variety of magazines, as well as in an anthology, Mosaic Moments. In 2008 her book "Struck Down, But Not Destroyed" was published. In 2013 she published the Bible Study "Living with Pain: Strength and Survival" with Lutheran Women in Mission (lwml.org). Roxanne, Andy, and their awesome seventeen-year-old son Jakob reside in Michigan.