This powerful documentary chronicles the final years of Country Singer Joey Feek as she celebrates life and love while battling cervical cancer.
Rory and Joey Feek, a Grammy-nominated husband-and-wife team, left the height of their music careers to simplify their lives and put down roots on their farm in Tennessee, in preparation for their daughter to be born. Rory knew God was going to give them a story to tell, so he began blogging and video documenting their lives.
He thought perhaps the story would be about farm living, or their daughter who was diagnosed with Down syndrome, or perhaps about his wife’s cancer. The documentary includes all of these things, but it ends up being a love story filled with faith and hope.
CMT says the home videos in the film feature “mostly the good days. Gardening, cooking, praying, recording a hymns album and mothering Indiana with all the love in her heart.
‘[Joey] continued planting seeds that she knew she would never see harvested,’ Rory says. ‘And pouring love into a child she knew she wouldn’t get to watch grow up.’”
In an interview with Christianity Today, Rory is asked, “were there ever moments of doubt and despair for her?” To which, he responds:
She had moments of being confused, of not understanding why she wasn’t getting better and wondering why God was letting life happen the way that he was. But I don’t think she was ever angry or filled with despair. Her faith was incredibly strong and childlike. Even on days that were disappointing or scary, she believed that “this is the day the Lord has made.” I did too. I still do.
Before the film aired on September 20, Rory got on the TODAY show and described how putting together the footage helped to bring her back to life. “I couldn’t remember my wife healthy,” he says, “until I started going through the footage and then, I saw her come back to life. And I was able, in making the film, to watch her life happen in real time again. It was amazing.”
When asked how he holds onto his faith, he says, “Joey and I have both always had a childlike faith, we don’t even understand how it works. We just put our faith in God and somehow He makes it okay, even when it’s not okay.”
Their deeply touching story may not have been the story they wanted or expected, but they trusted in God’s greater plan to tell the story He wanted to tell in their lives.
“Sometimes the most beautiful things happen in the midst of tragedy,” Rory says in the TODAY interview.
On the day she died, he wrote this in his blog:
“My wife’s greatest dream came true today. She is in Heaven. The cancer is gone, the pain has ceased and all her tears are dry. Joey is in the arms of her beloved brother Justin and using her pretty voice to sing for her savior.”
What a rich gift of hope for those that are suffering from life-threatening illnesses.
To Joey, With Love will air again as a special Fathom Event on October 6 in select theaters. To find out which theaters will be showing this film, click here.
