“Love is as strong as death”

(Jennifer, one of our most tireless Insights contributors, first wrote this blog post for us in 2020 after Bishop Michael Curry preached at Resurrection.)

My great-great grandmother, Sara Jane McLintock, is legendary in my family. My grandmother and my daughter were named after her. She was a woman of great faith and stories of her trust in Jesus and absolute certainty that God was guiding and protecting her are still blessing her descendants today.

There is another story, though, that has always been a favorite of the generations that followed, especially the granddaughters. She married very young (16 or 17) by eloping with an Irish blacksmith named Frank McLintock. Eleven years later, in Emporia, Kansas he died suddenly from a burst appendix, leaving her a very young widow with two little girls and a baby boy “under her apron.” The social views of the late 1800s put great pressure on her to find a new husband as soon as possible. The stories say many family members tried to “marry her off” to various suitors for years. She turned them all down and remained a widow for the rest of her life-–seventy-plus years. My mother told me that, even into her 90s, Sara Jane’s eyes twinkled when she talked about Frank McLintock. I have one of her Bibles, a small one my Mom said she kept at her bedside. If you turn to Song of Solomon 8:6-7, you can see the imprint on the page of some kind of flower that must have been pressed there for years. The actual flower is long gone, but it’s obvious she thought the verses were special.

Other stories make it obvious that Sara Jane knew the permanence and staying power of love. The memory of her too-brief time with the love of her life lasted for more than seventy years, but, even more important, the permanent love of God sustained her. My mother said that she always talked about Jesus like he was in the room. “Jesus says we should do this…,” she would say, quoting Scripture. She ran a boarding house for other women who were alone in Territorial Oklahoma, sold Bibles door to door, and made “beautifier” cream to sell and support herself and her children. She knew great romantic love, but she also knew an even greater love. Bishop Curry talked about that when he summed up this text, saying, “The message of God is very simple. Love one another, Take care of one another. Take care of creation. And while you’re at it, love me – love God. Do that and you will find your way. That is the core of the gospel.”

Sara Jane’s story is fun, but it reminds us that even the best human romantic stories don’t always end in golden anniversaries or long lives shared. When we read about the divine flame, and love that can’t be washed away by rushing waters, we can know that love is available to all of us forever, through God’s love for us and our love for God. We also know we can pass that love along by loving one another, no matter our circumstances. My great-great grandmother’s love for her husband and for God blessed the generations that followed, and continues to do that today. We all have the opportunity to pass on that kind of blessing-–to our families, our neighbors, and the generations to come!