“The pain and heartbreak that we’ve had over this and just thinking of how it’s affected so many,” she said. “Yeah, it’s just unthinkable. It’s so hard and painful, and on many levels.”
“Thinking about the victim who was brave enough to share her story has been heartbreaking,” Jeremy agreed, “just the effect on that young person’s life is unimaginable. And then to see the ripple effect of that horrific crime, just across the board, it just has so many damaging rippling effects.”
He said that for him, what has been top of mind is “the horror of a crime like that affecting so many for so many years. It’s devastating to think about. It’s devastating.”
He said that he and Jinger are praying for the alleged victim, as well as “for all of those affected, asking that God’s grace would be apparent and would show up, even though on a human level, it’s hard to see where his grace would show up in a situation like this. It’s easy just to see the darkness.”
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The news has driven them to prayer, “asking the Lord to be kind, to be merciful, asking the Lord to expose truth that’s been hidden.” The couple are “praying for wisdom for the officials who are going to, in the months and years ahead, seek to pursue earthly justice so that this doesn’t happen to other people.”
“Ultimately,” said Jeremy, he and Jinger are “resting in the promises of God and really finding ourselves in a place of going to the Lord and just asking him to be gracious and kind and merciful, to draw near to the brokenhearted.”
“The children especially, you just think of how this affects their life,” he added. “It’s devastating.”
“It’s hard. I don’t even have words,” said Jinger. “All we can do in those moments is just cry out to God and ask him to sustain us, to give help.”
Alluding to what happened with her brother Josh, Jinger said, “You can’t be prepared for news like this, even though we’ve experienced something very similar before with one of my other siblings who made unthinkable choices, decisions that have affected all of us.”
“And yet the pain and hurt that’s caused to us, but then to so many others, is just so hard,” she continued. “And so, yeah, it’s hard to know, you know, what to do sometimes moving forward. You just feel the weight of it. It’s a tough situation.”
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“Yeah, it stuns you, like you kind of feel like, what now?” Jeremy said. “And yet life goes on.”
