A behemoth Great White Shark named LeeBeth reminds us of God’s promises to many in pain.
Two years after Ed and Lisa Young tragically lost their 34-year-old daughter in 2021 to substance abuse, Ed chartered a deep-sea fishing trip last December in memory of his daughter who “passionately loved to fish since she was young.”
“A shark was the last fish she caught,” Ed said. “I wanted to catch a Great White in honor of LeeBeth and share that experience with her.”
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After an exhausting two-hour battle off the coast of South Carolina, Ed and the team were elated with the colossal catch at the end of his line.
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“I thought I knew what big was,” he said. Measuring 14 feet and over 2,800 pounds, Ed officially named the mammoth shark after his beloved late daughter, LeeBeth.
Captain Chip Michalove led the expedition along with scientist Megan Winton, who tagged the shark with satellite trackers and then released her. Ed and many others then began to follow LeeBeth’s movement online.
On February 29th, 2024, the Great White Shark Conservancy announced that LeeBeth had made history as the “furthest west a white shark has ever been tracked into the Gulf of Mexico…and no other has pinged as much.”
In the last three months, she has traveled over 2,000 miles, passing significant locations to the Youngs, from where Lisa and Ed first met in South Carolina to the Gulf Coast of Texas, where they married and often fished those very waters. Each ping of the shark’s tracker reminds them of their grief journey and the journeys of so many others and the faithful promises of God for those who turn to Him in their suffering.
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“We will see our LeeBeth in Heaven again,” said Ed. “We do not grieve as the world does because we have this hope.
“This shark is a gift from God,” he said. “Catching, naming, releasing, and now tracking her record-breaking and newsworthy journey is opening doors for us to share hope and healing with many others in need.”
This “fish of a lifetime” allows the Youngs to “continue sharing LeeBeth’s struggles and story with others going through life with loss and hurt,” Ed said. “It’s more than a remarkable feat of tracking a Great White Shark; it’s a testament to the transformative power of faith through any pain.”
Ed and Lisa said their journey through grief has “galvanized and anchored” their family and faith. They detailed their story in a book released last year called, “A Path through Pain: How Faith Deepens and Joy Grows through What You Would Never Choose.”
