It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and my husband Mark and I were working out in the yard, getting our property in shape after the passing of winter. Everything was right in our world. We were so happy because our only daughter, Janah, had returned home to live with us again after a disastrous and abusive marriage. It had hurt us to see her suffer so, and now she was free of all that and making a new start in life.
We were beginning a new garden near our back patio, planting some new flowers and making it very beautiful with the help of one of Janah’s friends. Then, all of a sudden, our happy world turned into chaos. We received the phone call that no parent wants to receive. It came from our daughter-in-law, Kim, and it was to inform us that someone had been shot at a local fast food restaurant. Janah was working in that very restaurant, and when we heard this news, we somehow knew in our heart that she was the one who had been shot. In this horrific way, what had been a perfectly beautiful day—April 4, 2007—turned into the worst day of our lives, one that would long be remembered.
Not only had Janah been shot; she had been brutally stabbed again and again in various places and then had her throat slit. She bled to death. This brutal murder had been carried out by the person to whom she had entrusted her life and love “till death do us part.” How could we survive such a terrible blow?
This is our story, one of personal tragedy and yet, at the same time, one of hope and faith. We did survive the unthinkable, and it was all because God had been preparing us over the course of many years by working in us His sufficient grace.
Read along and find keys to life after tragedy through His Sufficient Grace.
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