Even So, Joy

“In life’s toughest moments joy and heartache fight for our undivided attention. You determine which one prevails.”

Stories are supposed to go a certain way—or so we’re told. You’re supposed to grow up, get an education, find your dream job, meet the love of your life, get married and start a family, and then live happily ever after. So when Brennan and Lesa Brackbill had their first child, they never imagined that they would soon lose her.

In Even So, Joy, author Lesa Brackbill shares the touching and inspiring story of her first daughter, Victoria, who would sadly be lost to an impossible situation after being diagnosed with Krabbe leukodystrophy when she was only six months old. Victoria was everything Lesa and her husband, Brennan, had hoped for, but faced with her terminal disease, their world was turned upside down. Though their story could have been filled with sorrow and despair, God was there to fill the story instead with gratitude and joy.

The Lord has a purpose for everything, and even though that purpose is not always fully revealed, we can learn to walk daily in the hope that God is going to redeem our sorrows. Lesa and Brennan won’t be the last couple to lose a child to an impossible situation, but through Tori’s life—and with God’s faithfulness and help—it will be a story that can encourage us to remember that God is good, God is sovereign, and God is faithful. Always.