There are several “anniversaries” coming up this year for Christina. March 12, 2024 will be the 30th anniversary of her birth, and Team Grimmie frands all over the world are undoubtedly planning special celebrations.
This coming February 24 will mark ten years since NBC broadcast Christina’s legendary “blind audition” for Season 6 of The Voice. It ranks as one of the highest moments in the whole history of televised music competitions, and Christina’s splendid voice, engaging stage presence, and personal charisma would go on to make a powerful impact on television viewers, and carry her all the way to the finals.
I have written so much about this singular young woman, her strong faith, her beautiful soul, and the sense she had of her musical vocation and her relationship with her frands as a giving-of-herself, an unconditional love poured out “for the glory of Christ” and for the people He had “given to her.” And Christ gave her people in so many ways: first of all, in her family, friends, and collaborators, but also at concerts and meet-and-greets, or “on the other side” of social media interactions or her innovative YouTube creations in the early days of interactive audiovisual media.
Christina suffered from a particular vulnerability in following her path through the mainstream music industry, but she also had an “inspired audacity” in the way she reached out to people who struggled with disabilities, had problems with self-worth, or otherwise felt marginalized. When she encouraged them, it was with a sense of loving “authority” far beyond her years.
She would say, “Jesus loves you so much… as do I.” She said this on occasion, when the circumstances called for it, but she lived it every day with a grace-given gift of compassion and hospitality—she welcomed people into the sphere of her life, she risked taking the position of letting God’s love for others pour through her life, personality, and gestures.
In the end, perhaps we shouldn’t say that some awful man took her life on June 10, 2016. Christina Grimmie had already given her life to God and to others—her friends, her frands, and—finally—her enemies, with love.
This love is greater than death. Like the grain of wheat, it is buried deep in the earth. But it bears abundant fruit.
