I suppose this time of year, I tend to be a bit more nostalgic, but it was also a song this morning at church that took me back. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

One of the first times Josh and I spoke was at Hebron in Bloomington, IN. It was after a baptism at the lake. When the men would come out of the water, everyone would sing together Nothing But The Blood of Jesus. It was the end of January 2011 when I was at camp with my good friend Bethany, and this guy came up to me after the baptism service and handed me a devotional written by a missionary. I read that devotional for the following 2 months during one of my trips in Burundi.

It is one of the most painful things in our lives to think about some of those days, and the reality that 9 out of 10 of those men watching or partaking in the baptism that day are gone: dead, relapsed, or in prison. I don’t know why God would take some handsome dude with missing fingers from Wisconsin and drag him to southern Indiana, where he would run into a young woman with auburn hair and this outlandish love for some country in the middle of Africa most have never heard of. Then again, God is really good at making beautiful stories in the most unexpected places. That cold day in January 2011 was part of the beginning of a story only God could write.

Today I sat in our church service in Oklahoma, hearing that song again in English and also Kinyarwanda, and that same young woman with auburn hair, now a bit older, was holding the hand of that same handsome dude with missing fingers from Wisconsin. Sometimes I’m just struck by our love story and how undeniable the hand of God is in it. There’s nothing special at all about the two of us; we simply serve a really incredible God, whom we pray to every day to continue being the cement that holds us together. He redeems.

This is all my hope and peace: nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness: nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know; nothing but the blood of Jesus.