Heather Milburn

A woman sitting on a chair with her legs crossed, smiling, wearing a denim shirt, white pants, and tan sandals, with a white-paneled wall in the background.

- founder & Marketing and Communications Director

Hi! I’m Heather, co-founder and Marketing and Communications Director of Faithfully Restored. I’m married to my college sweetheart, Will, and we have two children, Madison and William. They are my greatest gifts, my favorite people and the family I prayed for long before I knew their names.

Much of my heart for Faithfully Restored comes from my own experiences with loss, illness and the people God placed in my life to carry me through both.

As a teenager, I lost three of the most important people in my life in a very short period of time. When I was 14, my mom died from metastatic breast cancer. On the evening we buried her ashes, my grandfather died from a heart attack. Then, just one year later, my father passed away unexpectedly.

It was an incredibly painful, lonely and confusing time in my life. I questioned God and struggled to understand what His plans could possibly be for me. But even in the middle of my anger and grief, He never stopped pursuing me. Through His unwavering grace, God continually placed people in my life who reminded me that I was deeply loved and never alone.

Without hesitation, my older brothers stepped in and became my guardians. I was considered an orphan by the court system, and soon afterward, we moved to Tennessee. That season was difficult and, at times, incredibly trying, but I will always be grateful for the selfless decision my brothers made to care for me and keep our family together.

In 2008, I married Will, and a few years later, we welcomed Madison and William. Life felt full and beautiful. Then, in 2015, at the age of 30, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer—the same disease that had taken both my mother and grandmother.

The love, prayers and practical support we received from our family, friends and community became a lifeline. In 2017, we learned that my cancer had returned. Through God’s continued grace, an incredible medical team and countless prayers, I am still here today. That is a gift I never take for granted.

But our family’s story with illness did not end there.

In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Will became very sick. After several dead ends and misdiagnoses, he was diagnosed with a rare disease called amyloidosis. He was one of the youngest people on record to receive his specific diagnosis. Our hearts broke as we realized that our children no longer had one sick parent, but two.

Once again, God met us in the uncertainty. He showed up through our family, our friends, our medical teams and the people who prayed for us when we did not have the words to pray ourselves. He continues to remind us that even when life looks nothing like we imagined, He is still present, still faithful and still working.

We do not know what the future holds for our family, but we know where our hope is found. Through Jesus, we have experienced a peace that does not depend on our circumstances and a hope that remains even in the hardest seasons. What a gift that is.

At Faithfully Restored, I have the privilege of sharing the stories of the women we serve and helping others see the heart behind this ministry. Every prayer request, handwritten note, care package and act of generosity represents a woman who deserves to know that she is seen, loved and not alone. It is an honor to watch God use our individual stories, even the chapters we never would have chosen, to bring comfort and hope to someone else.

Trials and heartbreak are an unavoidable part of this broken world, but we were never meant to walk through them alone. Whatever brought you to Faithfully Restored, my hope is that you find a community willing to meet you in the middle of your story—to pray for you, encourage you and remind you that God has not forgotten you.

My prayer is that we will continue walking through this broken world together, allowing Jesus to bring beauty from the ashes and purpose from the places that once held only pain.

You are seen. You are loved. And you are never alone.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

Contact - hmilburn@faithfullyrestoredwomen.com

-who we are

Watch Heather’s Story

Growing up, my mom always stressed to my siblings and me how important it was to stay together regardless of what life would throw at us, and that there was a bond that siblings have, and to just lean into that and lean into the faith that we all will go through something, and that we should, as a family, try to stay together and continue to have faith in God.

I didn't know then that those words of wisdom from my mom would be so profound as I went through my adolescent years into my adulthood, but they were.

Not too long after, my mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast and ovarian cancer when I was younger, and she went through grueling treatment and just knew that her time here on Earth was coming to an end.

She took us to our favorite vacation spot in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and it was there that she told us that she was indeed going to pass away and go home to heaven.

And while it was so hard to hear, we also knew it was a beautiful thing that was to come because she was ready to go home. Her earthly body was ready.

So we went home. We brought in hospice, and people from all around the country came to say their goodbyes.

We knew she wasn't going to make it to Christmas that year, so we decorated in early fall, and it was one of the most amazing Christmases. Even though we knew my mom wasn't going to make it, we celebrated her life, and it was amazing.

And in that fall, she passed away in '99.

I just remember we had this massive church ceremony to say goodbye. She was a teacher, a Christian teacher at a school in our hometown, and people from all over came. I mean, there were thousands and thousands.

So it was hard for my siblings and me to not look around and realize the impact she had on not only ourselves, but on so many people. And she shared the hope of Jesus, and that's just amazing. I still cling to that.

I can still close my eyes and remember those moments.

And it was through my mom's faith and hope that my father and I became close. I think that would naturally happen for most people. At a young age, they would get closer to their other surviving parent.

And I was so thankful for those moments with my dad to get closer and to get to know each other.

Not too long after, he ended up getting sick as well. He went in for a surgery, and when he came out, things just weren't right.

My siblings were away at college at the time, and they ended up coming home. It was at that time we learned that my dad was passing away. His earthly body as well was going through a fight that he would not survive.

And so we ended up having to put him in a nursing home not too far from our house. Every day we would go and visit him, and slowly but surely, he was dying.

It came to a point that we had to say our goodbyes.

I remember my siblings, my grandma, my aunts and uncles came in and said goodbye. And when we were there with him, he took his last breath.

I just remember looking around the room, and it was so painful and so quiet, and there were so many emotions. There was anger. There was happiness that he was no longer fighting on this side of the world and he was home with my mom in heaven.

And I just remember that could have been a point that we could have all just broken away and stopped having faith.

And we all clung to each other like my mom said.

It was those moments and those words of wisdom from my mom that allowed us to continue to put one foot in front of the other.

It was at that moment that my siblings made the selfless decision to become my guardians. Since I was under the age of 18, I was considered a minor.

So they came home, and we made the decision to move to Tennessee. Ohio was no longer a place that we needed to be to heal and to grow. I didn't need to be in the house my mom passed away in or drive past the nursing home my dad passed away in every day.

So we came here to Tennessee, and it was one of the most profound and life-giving decisions I could have made with the help of my brother.

I finished high school here and went on to go to the University of Tennessee. Huge UT Vol fans. Still are, regardless if they win or lose.

And there I met my future husband, Will.

I walked into an apartment one day and saw him and literally said, "I'm going to marry him," and called my best friend that day and said, "I met the guy of my dreams, and I'm going to marry him."

And I think God put us on a path because we went through similar situations when we were children.

He lost his mom, Joanne, when he was nine. She had an accident at work and ended up going into a coma and passing away.

So he understood that. He understood pain at a young age.

His dad remarried Jane, and not too long after that, she ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer. After several years of treatment, she ended up passing away as well.

So not only did we understand grief and loss, we understood the cancer world. We were able to connect with that.

At that point, I told him my story and told him how we have hereditary cancer in our family and the risk, and he didn't bat an eye.

He said, "Regardless of what happens, we're going to go through whatever our future faces together."

And I have faith that God put us through our stories for a reason.

And he was 100 percent correct when he said that.

We ended up getting married and having a little girl, Madison, and a little boy, William. They were the lights of our world, and life was going really well.

It was just the typical life you would have dreamed of, the life I dreamed of.

But it wasn't too soon after my little boy turned one that I noticed things were off with me. I started losing a lot of weight, didn't feel good, and just knew something was wrong.

We went on vacation to the same spot where my mom told us she was dying, and I told my sister that I had an appointment and that I knew for sure I'd be diagnosed with cancer.

And my fear came true.

The following week, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, and my world stood still.

I knew what I, as a child, felt watching my mom go through treatment, and I did not ever want my children to feel that way.

But then looking back, I truly believed that God was preparing me through what I went through with my siblings and with my parents for what my future held.

And my future was now in the present.

I had cancer, and I was going to get through that.

With the help of my amazing husband, doctors, and my siblings, I went through chemo and radiation and the full treatment and went into remission.

It was such an amazing experience. I was that person in my family that was going to beat the odds, and I was so excited for what our future held.

Life resumed, and not too shortly after that, I ended up relapsing in 2017 and realized that I was late stage at that time.

I was exactly what my mom was.

So I went through some more treatment. It was actually at that point that I went through some of the treatment that my mom trialed 20 years prior.

So she was actually trialing drugs that would one day save her little girl.

And that's pretty amazing.

It still gives me chills that she did that in her dying moments, was on a drug that literally is allowing me to be with my kids longer.

So I'm still on that. I'll be on that until it no longer works or they find a new treatment.

Life went on, and in 2020, when the world shut down with COVID, Will started getting sick.

After about 10 doctor's appointments, we finally met a doctor that was listening to us and realized something was wrong with Will.

They thought he had an aggressive form of cancer, which turned out to be a rare disease called amyloidosis. It's an orphan disease, and it's most likely terminal in the majority of individuals that get it.

In his situation, he's one of the youngest to have it in the area that it's presented.

We have absolutely no idea what the future holds for him.

We went to Boston, and they gave us hope, and we cling to, once again, that both of us went through these trials when we were little to prepare us for what we are currently in right now.

Will's positivity and outlook are contagious. It's pretty incredible.

And we know that regardless of what happens with myself or with Will, regardless if it's our worst nightmare of leaving our kids, that they'll be okay because we both were okay.

And that, in the end, God has us.

He knows our story.

Whether we think that our story is in vain is not on us because God has a purpose in everything.

The devil would love for all of us to feel that our story is not important and that we're the only one with that situation, or that disease, or that's lost somebody.

But that's not the truth.

God is there for us. We're never meant to be alone.

And He is there whether we feel it or not, whether we see it or not.

It is so important to just remember to cling to the hope and faith that we have in heaven and in those around us, and just to continue to put one foot in front of the other and know that God knows the end.

And it's okay if we don't.

But His ending is going to be amazing.