Last night, I stumbled upon these photos tucked away in an obscure Facebook album I did not know existed.
Six years ago, my sweet Jimmy baptized me in the Jordan River on the heels of a season marked by cancer, chemo, surgeries, and setbacks.
Up until the day we left, we were not entirely sure I would even be able to make the trip, but I did. And that journey became our celebration, an emotional reclamation of joy after everything we had walked through together.
What neither of us could have known then was that we only had eight more months left together this side of Heaven.
Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.
Finding these pictures last night, after a difficult month of my own in and out of the hospital, felt like an unexpected gift.
The ache was certainly there. How could it not be?
But somehow, gratitude rose higher.
As I looked through the photos, I realized that grief was not the strongest thing I felt.
Love was.
Love for the man who walked Jesus faithfully in front of me my entire life.
Love for the example he set.
Love for the kindness, steadiness, faith, and joy he carried so consistently through every season.
God’s promised, sufficient grace eclipsed my ache with gratitude for what I was given.
I never got over the honor that was mine simply to be Jimmy’s girl.
And it still moves me that the man who spent his life leading me toward Jesus would also be the one to baptize me in the Jordan that day.
Yes, there is joy, even now. Tear-mingled joy, perhaps, but joy nonetheless.
These pictures, discovered after such a difficult season, remind me once again that love outlives loss and hope still speaks louder than grief.
Scripture tells us, “We do not sorrow as those who have no hope.”
Because of Jesus, eternal life is not merely a promise waiting for us at the end of our earthly story, but a reality already unfolding within it.
Goodbye is never the end of the story.
One day, I will see Jimmy again, standing beside the Savior we first pledged our lives to all those years ago as teenagers.
My faith made sight in that moment, I will praise Him for His vigilant guardianship of our lives. I will finally know what I always believed: That our trust in Him was never misplaced, and that all He did, in light of eternity, was done well.
Until then, as I live in this space between promise and fulfillment, I carry both the ache and the gratitude.
But today, gratitude wins.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
~ 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡