Obituary of Molly Jane Keulen, 44
Molly Jane Keulen.
‘A beautiful life of grace’
– Molly Jane Keulen was born to Robert and Janet Schultz on Jan. 11, 1978, in Springfield, Oregon.
She was blessed to have parents who loved her dearly and continually taught her through their words and life to love God and to live for Him. As the oldest of three girls, she enjoyed coming up with ideas of plans for her and her sisters to do together and was creative in talking them into doing them.
Sometimes that meant talking the sisters into putting on Western Dinner Shows and serenading the guests together, hosting girl’s retreats at their home, or writing a blog together, among many other things. After spending six years of her childhood and young adult life living in a 29 ft Travel Trailer with her family, she enjoyed filling their new home that her father had built with beauty all around. Life at the Abbey (as they often referred to it) was a haven of rest and peace and Molly loved to putter around filling her home with order and touches of beauty- tea cups, flowers and lace, and her piano playing.
Her parents continually read God’s word to their girls and prayed for them, and at a young age, Molly received Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Around the age of 14, she was baptized in the creek on their property. At 19 years of age after a short-term mission trip to Russia Molly began experiencing headaches and constant pain. The next 10 years were filled with many doctor visits and tests and trying various treatments without getting answers, and lots and lots of hours spent sick in bed or on the couch and missing out on what everyone else was doing. It was through these years that Molly began learning to wholeheartedly accept everything in life from God’s hand resting in His sovereignty and love and writing down the lessons that God was teaching her as she also became even more compassionate and empathetic to others’ needs.
As much as she could she filled her days with teaching Children’s Bible classes, and working with boys and teens which was a love of hers. As she taught teenage boys how to drive or joined into their adventures, little did she know that God was beginning to prepare her heart for the life he had for her of embracing her husband’s dreams and being a mama to four of her own adventurous boys.
Many of her journals were filled with prayers to the Lord for a godly husband and that the Lord would allow her to be a godly wife and mother of many precious children. On March 15, 2008, at the age of 30, God answered one of those prayers by joining her in marriage to her hero and friend Bob Bryan Keulen Jr. As they moved to their new home in Paso Robles, California, she began a new adventure of learning to embrace and rejoice in God’s purposes and plans for her, and to make their home a place of God’s beauty and grace.
The first year of their marriage was filled with exceeding joy and sorrow as they grew in love with one another, and walked together through the loss of their first baby (through miscarriage) and her dear father’s death from a heart attack. As Molly was walking through married life she began keeping a Thankfulness Journal of all the many ways that God filled her everyday moments with His grace and blessings. In the midst of countless days and months of morning sickness, labor, homeschooling her kids, cooking meals for hungry mouths to eat, dreams and disappointments, new little babies filling their home with joy and needs, playing with her kids and shepherding their hearts, and loving her husband, she began writing down her lists of Thankfulness and continued learning to accept everything as from God’s loving hand and to praise Him for it. Her writing has blessed so many. She truly characterized a life of grace- laying down her life to serve her family, learning to walk in God’s grace, and seeing each moment and day as a gift from God to look for the ways to rejoice and be glad in it.
Molly wrote in one of her Thanksgiving Family Newsletters- “This time of year is perfect for looking back over past moments, for reading what has been written on them, and above all, for giving thanks to the One Who writes His Grace over every single one of our moments. The God Who writes my moments…perfect, wisely, unerringly. The nail-pierced Hand keeps penning His love over each moment. May we all learn to read His writing better, learn to see that the moments don’t say ‘good’ or ‘bad’…they just all say ‘grace’.”
Some of the things she loved and that characterized her life was walking alongside her husband- dreaming with him, praying for him, being his helpmeet, and going on coffee dates or drives together; loving each of her children (the six here on earth and her eight babies in heaven), joyfully welcoming each new little life as a blessing from the Lord, and delighted in being their mama and teaching them to love the Lord; spending time with family and being a vessel for God’s love to flow through to others; and organizing and keeping a beautiful home to minister God’s love to her family and all who entered it!
On October 11, 2022, Molly peacefully went home to be with her Savior after suffering a brain aneurysm.
She will be deeply missed by her husband Bob Bryan Keulen Jr, their six children Bob III, Valor, William, Bella, Lance, and Bronwynn; her mother Janet Schultz, siblings Emily and Cameron McNeil, and Betsy Schultz; her father and mother in law Bob and Rosslyn Keulen, siblings by marriage Daniel and Genevieve Gillogley, Jonathan and Aimee Keulen, Graysen and Bethany Rowland, Juliana, Ruthann, Faith, Maryanna, and Bekah Keulen, and many nieces and nephews; as well as countless extended family members and dear friends!
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