Meet Jenny
Wife. Mother. Beloved Daughter of God.
I walk alongside those navigating loss, helping them carry grief with hope and resilience.
Through teaching, writing, speaking, and The Catholic Grief Podcast, I offer faith-rooted guidance shaped by lived experience.
As a Catholic wife and mother shaped by profound loss, including widowhood, I have come to understand suffering through the Cross and the steady presence of Christ in every season.
My story has been one of formation rather than ease.
A Life Formed in Resilience
As the daughter of a military family, I moved every two years through much of my childhood. Becoming “the new girl” was not occasional. It was expected. Each relocation required me to adapt quickly, read rooms carefully, and learn how to root myself in unfamiliar places. Long before I had language for resilience, it was quietly being formed.
Creativity became a steady companion in those early years. I began sewing at eight years old and spent hours making cards, coloring, and crafting small gifts for friends. Art was not a career path at the time. It was comfort. It was expression. It was a way to create beauty in seasons that felt uncertain.
Becoming a mother as a teenager marked the next defining chapter of my life. Responsibility came swiftly, along with a deeper awareness of commitment and perseverance. Marriage followed, bringing both growth and difficulty. Over the years, my husband and I welcomed eleven children together, building a full and lively home shaped by both joy and perseverance.
In the midst of growing our family, pregnancy loss added another layer of grief. The loss of our eighth child was a quiet but profound sorrow, deepening my understanding of both fragility and sacredness.
The years that followed were fragile but faithful. Through challenge and rebuilding, our marriage strengthened in quiet ways. It was during this season that Eucharistic adoration became an anchor in my life. In the stillness before Christ, I found steadiness when emotions felt overwhelming. Faith was no longer abstract. It was sustaining.
Loss, Widowhood, and Rebuilding
Widowhood would later turn my life upside down. With eleven children depending on me, including a five-month-old baby, grief was not only emotional. It was immediate and disorienting.
Plans unraveled. Identity shifted. The life I had built suddenly felt unfamiliar. Questions filled the quiet spaces: Who am I now? What does motherhood look like in this new reality? How does a woman move forward when everything has changed?
Yet the resilience formed in childhood, strengthened in young motherhood, and deepened in adoration carried me forward. Rebuilding did not happen quickly, and it did not happen without tears. But slowly, faith steadied me again.
In time, I remarried, stepping into a new chapter marked by courage, humility, and trust. Blending families and rebuilding life required steady faith and intentional leadership.
Today, as a wife and mother of thirteen, I continue shaping a family rooted in truth, resilience, and hope, now expanding into the next generation.
Faith, Creativity, and Calling
Through these seasons, something deeper began to take shape. I came to see that faith steadies the soul, creativity helps restore what grief has touched, and resilience is formed one faithful step at a time.
What began as personal survival slowly became a path I could share with others. Out of this journey grew the Creative Resilience framework, a faith-rooted approach that helps people carry grief through creative expression, reflection, and small, steady steps forward.
Today I serve those navigating loss through teaching, writing, speaking, The Catholic Grief Podcast, and the Creative Resilience programs. Everything I offer grows from lived experience and a deep conviction that grief does not have to be carried alone.
Creative Life
Creativity has always been part of how I process, rebuild, and serve. What began as sewing and crafting in childhood has grown into a lifelong rhythm of creating beauty with intention.
Today, my husband Jason and I run Burba Designs, where we offer handcrafted woodworking, apparel, and thoughtfully designed goods for everyday life. Building with our hands is one of the ways our family lives out resilience, stewardship, and quiet faith in action.
Ongoing Formation
In this season of life, I am pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with a minor in Psycology. Learning has never been separate from healing. Continued formation strengthens both my creative work and the way I serve those walking through grief.
Growth, like healing, happens one faithful step at a time.
Sharing Hope With Others
Over time, my story of grief, rebuilding, and faith has opened doors to speak and teach in a variety of spaces.
I have had the privilege of sharing reflections on resilience, creativity, and hope through conferences, workshops, published anthology collaborations, and conversations with communities seeking faith-rooted encouragement.
Receive Reflections on Grief and Hope
From time to time, I share thoughtful reflections, encouragement, and updates about the podcast and Creative Resilience. If you would like steady words rooted in faith and lived experience delivered to your inbox, you are welcome here.
No pressure. Just presence.