Before Angie lost her son Jake, she used to say something that I think many of us have said — or at least thought.
If something ever happened to Jake, you would just have to bury me with him. Period. End of discussion. There was no way.
And then the unthinkable happened.
Jake was Angie’s only child, her greatest surprise and her greatest blessing. Born in August of 1995, he grew up to be a man of quiet, steady faith — the kind that didn’t ask for recognition, that just lived itself out in the way he treated people, the way he loved his wife Hannah, the way he’d get genuinely excited talking about heaven. He loved the outdoors, he loved to hunt and fish, and Angie always called him her simple man. In fact, when he got married in 2020, their mother-son dance was to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.”
On March 8th, 2023, Jake was on his way to work when he was killed in a car accident. He was twenty-seven years old, just two years into his marriage, and days away from closing on the house he and Hannah had planned and saved for together.
Now, three years later, Angie is still here.
Not because it has been easy. Not because the grief has softened into something manageable. But because one foot in front of the other, one whispered Jesus at a time, God has held her up when she was sure she could not stand.
In this conversation, Angie speaks honestly about what these three years have looked like. The shock that she now understands as a mercy from God. The struggle to pray when the words just wouldn’t come. The Bible study group of bereaved moms that has become her lifeline. The therapist who told her that one of the ways she could honor Jake was to lean into Jesus, because that was Jake. And how after he said it, she started hearing it everywhere.
Lean in. Lean in. Lean in.
This is an episode about surviving what you were sure would kill you. About faith that isn’t tidy or triumphant, but shows up anyway, kicking and screaming sometimes, and keeps going.
If you have ever said there is no way I could survive this, this episode is for you.
Here is Angie, three years in, still standing.
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