Eight Years: A Legacy of Love -by Shelby Bennett

Eight years is a short time. In a sense it’s just an instant; it still feels like maybe it never happened, that it was all just a bad dream.

But eight years is a long time; it’s a third of my life that I’ve lived in the legacy that Jimmy left behind. And a lot has changed in the last eight years. People have grown, there have been weddings and graduations, funerals and births. The country feels more tense than it used to. For me things feel more dichotomized and polarized, more uncertain and unclear than ever. But the changes testify even more powerfully to Jimmy’s legacy that still holds as true as ever.

I knew Jimmy oh so briefly, but he exuded love. On the morning of Sunday, July 31st, 2011, I remember how we sat down – me at the piano, him on the guitar – and sang “How He Loves” with all we had. I was normally too shy to sing in any context where I could be heard, but that week Jimmy had specifically told me that he enjoyed singing with me, that he thought my harmonies were great. The kindness of those unprompted words rang deep in me, and we sang of the love of God.

I remember walking behind him on the trail we hiked, listening and asking questions about the students he had just left in China. He so clearly adored them – it was more than a western infatuation with short-term missions; it was a depth of love that was matched by a committed desire to return. He called them family, and he made everyone feel that way.

I remember getting to the top of Steamboat mountain and staring in awe at the magnificence of the view. Jimmy started singing and we all joined: “I could sing of your love forever.”

Jimmy leading worship overlooking Steamboat mountain- His Last night and time to lead

And I remember that night as we sat in the shock of what had just happened, I held his Bible and read verse after verse that he had highlighted, and over and over again I read what I expected to find: love, love, love.

A lot of us are striving for different ways to be known or remembered. We want to be right, or popular, or praised, or qualified, or educated. We want to be high-achievers, great performers, intellectually adept, spiritually advanced, and anything else. All of these are good in their own ways. But now more than ever, I am reminded that there is nothing, actually nothing, more valuable than to love.

I might not get a lot right in my life; I might believe wrongly, think poorly, or fail repeatedly. But if I’ve learned anything in the past eight years, it’s that I don’t need to be known for being perfect or right or super. I don’t need to have all the answers. I want to leave a legacy that means something, and that legacy is love.

He is special, unique, and different from anyone else we have known. But his life also invites us to simply open our hearts and bring every person we meet inside.

Thank you Jimmy for being the kind of person who can meet a 16-year-old for a week and change the trajectory of her life with encouragement, kindness, and a lot of love. I will always be grateful, and I will always want to grow up to be like you.

-post written and shared by Shelby Bennett