Remembering Kim Jones & Wedgwood Baptist Church
Twenty-three years ago, my dear friend Susan Kimberly Jones (Kim) was taken from us too early in a shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church. That night is forever etched in my mind. My roommate and I walked out of a TCU FCA meeting into the sticky, hot September night. Immediately, we heard that a shooting had occurred at a youth rally at Wedgwood.
Kim was there.
I won’t forget the frantic calls to cell phones that went unanswered, the drive over to Wedgwood in an attempt to get news, any news. I can still picture the scene. I can hear the sirens; I can glimpse the blinding lights casting a pulsing hue over the landscape dotted with first responders. We couldn’t get close. So we turned around and went back to campus. We called and prayed and prayed and called. And then … silence. Just a deafening silence. No returned calls. No assurance of safety. Nothing.
Then in the early pre-dawn hours that silence was shattered. A phone rang. First mine, then my roommates, then mine again. And in that moment, in that space between sleep and wakefulness, I knew. My roommate answered. Anguish rose in our chests and spilled out in gasping sobs.
The next days were a blur of mourning and moments remembered and a memorial service that celebrated the life of a girl who lived her days completely abandoned to the Lord. The tragedy of it still undoes me.
And yet … Kim’s story doesn’t end with tragedy. Hers is a story of victory! Because through it all … through the loss and the blinding heartache and the searing pain, there is an unexplainable peace that comes with the knowledge that Kim’s departure on this earth heralded her arrival into the arms of Jesus!
Kim died in a worship service … the curtain that separates this temporal life from eternity tore in half for her … and in that moment, she was ushered into the presence of the Lord. One minute she was picturing Jesus; the next she was face to face with him!
Jesus … the one Kim loved with a passion and a conviction that was contagious to all who knew her! To know Kim was to know Him: the Redeemer, the Rescuer, the Savior, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Lion of Judah and the Rock of Ages. He greeted Kim, and we rejoiced in that truth.
We rejoice still in that truth.
The summer before Kim went home to be with Jesus, she preached the good news of the Gospel to a small audience in Saudi Arabia. By the miraculous grace of God, that teaching was recorded. Since Kim’s parents worked for an oil company and lived in Saudi Arabia at the time, the Saudi government allowed that video to be broadcast on Saudi TV. We will never know this side of Heaven how many lives were changed for eternity because of Kim’s words.
If you’ve never examined the claims of Jesus, if you’ve never looked into His life and considered submitting yours to Him, then on this anniversary of Kim’s home-going, consider doing just that. Examine His words and the words others have written about Him. Examine what historians and those who have sought Him and found Him have had to say. Good places to start include Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ”, Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”. And then, say one prayer. “God show me.” Simply ask him to show you Himself. Then get ready to listen. Because if you truly tune your heart to hear, He will answer.
Life doesn’t make sense without Jesus. Death makes even less sense. Without Jesus and the promise of eternal life in His presence, Kim’s memory would be marred in tragedy. But because of Jesus, that’s not her story … that’s not OUR story.
Kim’s life did not end on September 15, 1999. She simply passed from this life into the next. And so we celebrate Kim with the knowledge that she is very much alive and whole and in the presence of Jesus for eternity! Because of Jesus, Kim’s story is victorious! And yours can be too!
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17
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