Jim Garlow’s Wife Passes Away After Six-Year Cancer Battle

Carol Garlow, the wife of pro-family advocate and pastor Jim Garlow, has gone home to be with the Lord after a brave and very public battle with cancer.

“We have tried to be very transparent for the past five years, nine months and 26 days, and we will be transparent once again,” wrote Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., on April 16. “Carol and I have just returned from her oncologist’s office. By mutual consent between Carol and her doctor, treatment has been discontinued. Hospice is now beginning.

“Although no doctor can ever predict (and he was quick to point that out), it is believed that Carol has approximately one to two months of life left on this earth. I am typing these words through tears and, candidly, in a bit of disbelief and shock. But, as quoted in the Easter sermon two weeks ago, ‘We are not as those who grieve with no hope, nor are we as those who hope with no grief.’ (John Nielson) We have unshakably strong hope. We have indescribably deep grief.”

Carol passed away Sunday afternoon. Jim, an active promoter of Pulpit Freedom Sunday, wrote, “42 years ago, we ended our wedding vows with the words, ‘… until one of us shall place the other in the arms of God.’ I just did that.”

Carol’s diagnosis came in 2007, just weeks before a group of pastors gathered at Skyline to organize an historic battle for traditional marriage via Proposition 8. Abdominal cancer kills about 80 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.

Alan Sears, president, CEO and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, was one of the first to offer condolences:

“Our hearts join Jim’s and the tremendous number of others who are mourning the death of Carol Garlow. Her unwavering faith and perseverance was an example to many. She loved God, was a pillar of strength for her husband and had an immense impact, including upon those of us who have worked closely with the Garlows in support of religious freedom. Our prayers are with Jim and the entire Garlow family.”

Read our earlier story on the Garlows: Jim Garlow: My Reason to Fight.