Davey Blackburn faced an absolute nightmare Nov. 10, 2015, when he arrived home from a morning workout to find his wife, Amanda, experiencing what he thought was an unexplained health crisis.
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He soon discovered she had been shot by an intruder who barged into their Indianapolis home — and nothing would ever be the same again.
It’s a harrowing story told in Blackburn’s new book, “Nothing Is Wasted: A True Story of Hope, Forgiveness, and Finding Purpose in Pain.”
“I walked in and my wife of seven years and my 15-month-old were in the house at the time,” he said. “My wife was pregnant with … our second … and, when I walked in, I discovered my wife was lying on our living room floor, and she was surrounded by blood.”
At first, he thought she might have gotten dizzy and fallen, but, once she was transported to the hospital, he learned Amanda, who was 13 weeks pregnant, had suffered three bullet wounds.
Tragically, the prognosis wasn’t good.
“They were going to try to see if they could operate, but it … didn’t look good,” Blackburn said. “And what they had surmised was that there were three men … they broke into the home three doors down from us, saw me leave for the gym that morning, and decided to break into our home, and Amanda … got caught up in that.”
Blackburn and Amanda were pastors and church planters at the time. The couple had left their dream job a few years earlier in South Carolina to follow God’s call to plant a church in Indianapolis.
The shocking murder unfolded just as the church was “taking some roots and getting some momentum,” he said. Things had just seemed to be falling into place when the unthinkable happened.
Before Amanda’s death, Blackburn recalled a conversation with his wife.
“She looked at me … I’ll never forget, she looked at me and she said, ‘I think … we’re like beginning to live our dreams. This is beginning to take root,'” he said. “And, then, Tuesday, Nov. 10, I walk in and I find her lying on our living room floor.”
The preacher called the entire ordeal — which quickly became a local and national news story — an “unimaginable, traumatic experience.”
Amanda was pronounced dead on Nov. 11, four years to the day that the couple packed up a moving van to leave for Indianapolis.
“My world had just been turned upside down,” Blackburn said. “I was reeling over the grief and the loss of my best friend, my soulmate, my ministry partner. I was trying to figure out how to be a single dad to my son, Weston, who had been untouched and unharmed in his crib the entire time.”
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On top of losing Amanda and their unborn baby, Blackburn also had to contend with media scrutiny considering the story’s wide reach — speculation that only added to the pain.
“Nobody expects to go through what we went through, and, then, when you do … at least you would think you would be able to grieve privately,” he said. “We had virtually the entire world looking on, which on one hand was amazing, because we had the support of so many Christian brothers and sisters who were supporting us in prayer. And we had access to the best of the best resources.”
Blackburn continued, “But, on the other hand, we also had a media narrative that was beginning to spin things on certain levels in some of the minor pockets of the media where they were beginning to, you know, wonder if I was behind it.”
This added to the chaos and grief, inflicting further torment he said was “excruciating,” especially as it played out so publicly. Throughout the grief and uncertainty, though, he said his faith sustained him.
“I don’t know how you go through things like this or anything remotely close to this — any kind of loss, grief, tragedy, trauma without Jesus,” he said. “The Holy Spirit ministers to you in a way that nobody else can. And, so, Scripture was very it was very near to me. When it says, ‘He gives you a peace that passes all understanding — that guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus,’ I understood what that meant.”
Despite experiencing God’s peace, Blackburn still had to deal with the very real emotions of hatred, unforgiveness, and all that comes along with such a tragic scenario.
“It’s not something where it’s just this on-off switch, where one day you hate … you’re full of bitterness and hatred, and then all of a sudden the next day you’re like, ‘Oh, I think I’m ready to forgive,'” he said. “Immediately, I came out into the media and said, ‘I’ve chosen to forgive.'”
Blackburn said he had spent years preaching forgiveness and knew the “right thing to do” and the “right thing to say.” Still, he had been confronted with the incomprehensible and needed to work his way through it all.
“I knew what … I wanted my heart to feel, but it wasn’t feeling that because forgiveness is not a feeling,” he said. “It’s a decision, and, as you begin to walk in that decision daily, then … the Lord does things to begin to heal your heart, grow your heart, stretch your heart.”
Blackburn shares in “Nothing Is Wasted: A True Story of Hope, Forgiveness, and Finding Purpose in Pain” what this journey looked like, including his recognition that a refusal to forgive would be like “a cancer” to his soul that would “destroy” him.
“Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that … they’re no longer held by the consequences of the decision that they made, and the justice system all of a sudden now is just thrown out the window,” he said. “It means, ‘I no longer choose to hold it against you, because my debt was paid for by Jesus.'”
Thus, Blackburn had to fully trust Jesus in the process as he navigated the bitterness, grief, and loss. he said he sought God and asked not only for forgiveness but also for “compassion and grace for the men who did this.”
Looking back, Blackburn believes God has been incredibly faithful both in his ministry and personal life.
“There are so many things where God has shown up for me, even in ways that are unseen,” he said. “He’s healed me, He’s restored me, He’s put me back together, made me whole again, so that I can help other people. And that’s really what your healing and wholeness is for. It’s not for you. … It’s so that you can begin to comfort others with the same comfort that you’ve been comforted [with].”
He now leads a ministry called Nothing Is Wasted to help people overcome trauma, tragedy, and major life transitions. It’s an effort that helps coach people through the messy moments in life. And that’s not all.
“God’s begun to put the broken pieces back together in my family,” Blackburn said. “I got remarried.”
Among the many redemptive elements in his story is a truly wild connection between his story and his new wife, Kristi. The couple blended their family, with Kristi bringing a daughter in and Blackburn bringing in his son, Weston.
The couple also had a son of their own, and they’re walking out a new mission together to help those in crisis. Blackburn is hoping his story, as told through the book, helps inspire others.
“Pain is the common denominator of life and pain often gets us stuck,” he said. “We have a real enemy … Ephesians 6 tells us the enemy wants to thwart God’s plan for our life, and often what he does is he brings pain, trauma, tragedy, major life transition to get us stuck so that we can’t fulfill the plan that God has for our life.”
But Blackburn said the Lord has “an even stronger, greater plan that He wants to bring into your life” — and he’s hoping people see how “amazing” God truly is.
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