Jessica was a missionary kid. She was two months old when we were assigned to our first field. Some things seemed normal at two and three, four months, but there were mounting questions and suspicions into six months. Eventually, in talking with our headquarters, we went back to Minneapolis for tests.

In the years that followed there were many tests, but there was a point when, at the University of Minnesota, they told us there were a few more exotic tests, but nothing that would likely change the prognosis they had come to. Their best shot was a diagnosis of encephalitis infection that had damaged the brain. It was not until 2006 that we heard of a possible origin, or likelihood of Jessica’s condition. By 1985 they had only begun to understand Rett Syndrome, a random X chromosome defect, and it’s effects. The defect kills boys. They said Jessica would not make it to ten. Thirty three years later she was still gracing our home with her power.

“5. Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” Jessica loved him.
And how did she love him? She might offer this...“14. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds...19. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder." - James 2

This is the crux of faith in Jessica’s testimony--her deeds, her patient long-suffering was the crown to her faith. Faith makes possible the patience, the suffering, the joy one looks forward to, and God forbid, no pie in the sky. The deeds verify the faith. The deeds are evidence of sustaining faith, of the exquisite joy and happiness of real faith. She had surgery for scoliosis if what she was dealing with wasn’t enough. The Harrington procedure removes all the disk in the back. They grind those up while the person is in surgery. They socket two steel rods from the top of the spinal column down in the pelvic bone. They wire the bone-fused spinal column to those rods, done in two stages, a week apart, also requiring to remove two ribs for access to the lower back, contributing those ribs to the fusing of the backbone.

After the second surgery, she aspirated and we lost her for about 11 minutes. She lost her sight. She was unconscious for two months. How does such a frame stand the trauma? It seems she knew from her Jesus, she was asked to stay.

At one point, and while she was still in a comma, we took the boys in to her room. Jonathan, full of the spirit, at three years old, declared he would protect her. He would fight off the enemy. The prayers of our children have made a difference in her battles over the years. It was the school of highest accrediting. Their credentials today, are that they are, at any cost, committed to the kingdom of God.

We had hoped to return to a field. It was not the vision our board shared. It was a human impracticality. Jessica, however, was the perfect segway for being introduced to people of all walks of life. We had the perfect advantage for discussing what constituted life and it’s meaning, and who gives life it’s ultimate defining and sanction. We begged that the people we were going to all were disadvantaged without the gospel of the Cross. They too were broken and in profound need. We were like them. People identified with Jessica.

There is so much to tell of her life. Should you wish to hear, please write.

The family grew around her. They had their years of homeschooling. They had their years of conferences and trips. Jessica enjoyed it all.

When, in a life, you commit to God to take all of your life, he applies the test. The test proves your love. Jessica was tested, it seems more than us all. But, it was her faithfulness that continued to minister to each of us. It seemed we experienced so much more, but in her faith she went beyond us.

Now it is for us, for me, to live for that exquisite qualification of pure in heart. The gifting is for all of us. I want no other. My family wants no other. Jessica led in this. It is a finished, available, life-requisite.

Dale Hedden