Jesus Wept With Us: A Modern Mary and a Modern St. Joseph Walk Their Daughter to Her Heavenly Home

How one girl's faith amid cancer diagnosis and treatment sparked a movement of faith and mercy, and brought her stepfather home to the Catholic Church.

(Photo provided)

By Karin Gamba

“Jesus wept.” 

The shortest verse in the gospel, brief as it may be, is a source of sacred assurance and profound hope for Cyndi and Jim McGinnis, who lost their daughter to cancer.

“Jesus didn’t stand outside our grief. He entered into it. He wept with us. He wept with me,” said Cyndi.

Now living in Glenwood Springs, where they are active parishioners of St. Stephen Parish, Cyndi and Jim’s journey of faith and finding one another began in 2006, in Pennsylvania. Theirs is a story marked by love, loss and a deep sense of gratitude, cultivated not in ease but in the trenches of unfathomable sorrow.

A Turning Point

“I was raised in a Catholic family,” Cyndi explained. “But I had my rebel years — the ones I’d like to forget.”

A first-grade teacher, Cyndi became a single mom when Maggie was two and Kenzie was five.

“That was a turning point for me,” she said. “I embraced my faith in earnest, and you could say that God became my spouse at that point.”

In 2006, four years into single motherhood, Cyndi met Jim, a Pennsylvania native, through mutual friends.

“We were cautious, of course,” she said. “We’d both done the marriage thing before. I had two girls, Kenzie and Maggie, and Jim had two kids, too, Logan and Rachel, living in another state, so blending our families wasn’t easy.”

They married in 2010. One year later, 11-year-old Maggie was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare, aggressive and painful bone cancer that viciously targets adolescents.

“It was fast and furious,” Cyndi said. “Maggie’s whole journey — from diagnosis to death — lasted just eight months.”

Cyndi and Jim McGinnis (Photo provided)

A Love Story in Two Acts

As the newest member of the family, Jim recalled, “It was a love story in two different ways. Cyndi and I had our journey. But then there was the love story between Maggie and me. At first, she wasn’t sure about me. I was the guy taking her mom. But then she got sick, and we couldn’t be separated.”

Jim stepped into his new role as a stepdad with grace and grit.

“He was my St. Joseph,” said Cyndi.

One of the things Jim had to learn was how to give Maggie her daily Neupogen shot, a painful injection to boost her white blood cell count.

“When Jim found out I had cancer, he became one of the best caretakers ever,” wrote Maggie in her self-published book, Learning to Live with What You Have. “He mastered the medicine, the shot and the chest tube.”

He also made her twice-baked potatoes and steak whenever she wanted them. Later, when she could no longer walk, Jim became Maggie’s legs.

“She didn’t like to use the wheelchair, so I carried her everywhere — through hospitals, across parking lots. I just carried her for months,” Jim said.

“It really was a love story between them,” Cyndi recalled. “The way he carried her. It was like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. Jim was the daddy my girls didn’t have.”

A Mother’s Plea

During Maggie’s first round of chemotherapy, Cyndi sat in the dimly lit Children’s Hospital room and composed the following prayer as she watched the toxic medicine drip into her little girl’s body.

Dear Heavenly Father, You are bigger than cancer. If it is your will, you will heal Maggie, and it will be considered a miracle — one of your finest. Please heal Maggie, Lord. I beg you — I want more time with her here. I cannot imagine life without her — my Velcro buddy, my shadow, my mirror. And yet she never really was my daughter. She is your child. And I was given the incredible privilege of being her earthly mother. If it is your will to call her home after such a short time here on earth, then, PLEASE, I desperately need your grace and strength to accept your will and walk my daughter home to you, her heavenly Father. Thank you for honoring me with the most precious gift of being Maggie’s mom.

“This was my main prayer to God, but there came a point when I was unable to pray. By God’s grace, that’s when Maggie and our whole family were lifted in prayer by others. So many people were praying for us,” Cyndi recalled.

Faith Can Crush Fear

Magdalena Rose — Maggie — was born on the Feast of the Visitation and named for St. Mary Magdalene, with her middle name honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary. Maggie loved school, horses, dogs, running, her cousins and family.

“She was the life of the party. She could light up a room. She was organized, too,” said her mother. “It’s fair to say Maggie ran our household.”

A video on the Miracles from Maggie foundation website shows the vivacious pre-teen being silly and performing “Single Ladies” with her sister, Kenzie and her beloved cousins.

“God filled Maggie with a wisdom and grace that defied her young years,” Cyndi said. “He gave me the courage I needed to walk my daughter home.” Through her suffering, Maggie coined the phrase that became the family motto: ‘Faith Can Crush Fear.”

Big Faith from a Little Girl

Maggie only asked “Why me?” once.

“It was halfway through,” Cyndi remembered. “With big crocodile tears, she looked at me and said, ‘Why would God want me? I’m only 11.’ I said, ‘Maggie, I don’t know why, but I do know he’s really proud of you. People’s lives are changing just watching you.’”

In Learning to Live with What You Have, Maggie wrote, “If I did not have any friends, if I did not have an amazing family, if I did not know God, I would not be able to fight this cancer. Can you imagine if I did not have anybody to support me or if I did not have any faith? I know I would not be able to fight. Thanks to all my amazing friends and family, and especially to God, I can do it!”

Jim and Cyndi assured Maggie that even if God did call her Home, she would always be just a “blink” away.

“My sister had also lost a child to cancer. Her son, Tyler, lived to be nine. Maggie knew him. We told her, ‘All Tyler has to do is blink and he sees us again.’ So, we practiced blinking,” Cyndi said, tearing up. “You will be able to see us anytime you want from Heaven, we told her, ‘We’re the ones who will miss you.’”

“It’s been a process of learning to embrace our cross. I’m glad to know what my cross is,” Jim added. “You do get stronger over time, but the sadness doesn’t go away. I don’t want the sadness to go away. It is so linked to Christ’s suffering. You’re in it with him.”

One Foot in Heaven

When the chemotherapy, the radiation and other drugs proved futile, Maggie transitioned to hospice at home. And, along with Maggie came Jesus.

“For five weeks, the Eucharist came to our house every day,” Cyndi said. “You’d walk into our home and feel the presence of Jesus. People would comment on it. Our home was holy ground.

“It was comical. I’d have to say, ‘Excuse me, Jesus, I need to get the butter from the fridge.’ He was that present!” she recalled, with a gentle laugh.

As long as Maggie was up for it, Adoration was part of Cyndi and Maggie’s routine.

“We’d pray a Rosary on her ‘Beads of Courage,’ the beads she earned for every procedure she endured. Maggie had hundreds of beads,” Cyndi explained. “In Adoration, she knew the peace and comfort of Christ. She’d rest or fall asleep in his presence.”

“What belief does is unreal,” explained Jim. “He [Jesus] comes. Maggie and other cancer kids are our teachers. They are the ones leading us.”

A Mother’s Comfort in the Eucharist

Cyndi experienced a series of deeply personal encounters with the Eucharist, each of which brought her profound peace and a lasting sense of God’s nearness.

One of these encounters took place shortly after Maggie’s passing, on Ash Wednesday in 2012. Surrounded by loved ones, Cyndi found comfort in the peaceful smile on her daughter’s face, a reminder of Christ’s closeness.

Another came months later in the stillness of a private chapel, where Adoration became a place of healing and hope. In that quiet space, Cyndi received a moment of clarity and consolation that revealed just how thin the veil between heaven and earth can be.

Later, God continued to offer reassurance through daughter Kenzie, then a 15-year-old reserved teenager. During Adoration at a Steubenville youth retreat, Kenzie experienced her own moment of grace — one that affirmed for Cyndi that both of her daughters were alright and held in God’s care.

“I know they’re not official Eucharistic miracles. But they were miraculous to me. They’re mine. And they’re why I can say with certainty: the Eucharist is real. It’s true,” said Cyndi. “God was radically comforting me. I think he can do that in a thousand different ways, in a way that works for each individual.”

Father Tony Davis, former parochial vicar at St. Stephen Parish in Glenwood Springs, with Cyndi, Kenzie and Jim. (Photo provided)

From Grief to Grace

Now in her 20s, Kenzie has channeled her pain into purpose.

“The tragic loss of her sister became her compass,” said Cyndi.

Kenzie earned her master’s degree in social work and now serves as a school counselor at St. Stephen Catholic School in Glenwood Springs through the Aspen Hope Center, where she offers empathy, support and hope to children navigating their own challenges.

Her heart for kids and young adults extends beyond the classroom as well. Three years ago, she helped launch the parish youth group with former parochial vicar Father Anthony Davis and continues to lead alongside current vicar Father Jacob Machado. The group meets regularly on Sunday evenings, welcoming middle and high schoolers into a vibrant, fun, faith-filled community.

In July 2025, Kenzie brought teens to the Steubenville of the Rockies youth conference. “It’s providential that Kenzie is now the one taking kids to Steubenville — the very setting where she was so comforted in Adoration,” said Cyndi.

Jim, too, has found himself transformed. Raised a Methodist and later drawn to non-denominational churches, he eventually longed for something more.

“They were welcoming, had great music, but when you leave, it’s over. I needed something deeper,” he shared. The Catholic Church has depth — the Eucharist, the saints, the prayer life.”

After 17 years of walking alongside Cyndi, Jim officially entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2023.

“Not being able to receive the Eucharist was a real thorn in my side,” he admitted. What ultimately drew him in was the Real Presence — and Maggie. “Her journey brought me closer to God in the most intimate, personal way.”

Today, Jim helps other people journeying to the faith via the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA), telling his story of conversion and answering questions from catechumens.

For both Jim and Kenzie, their lives are testaments to how grief can become grace and how love, rooted in faith, can be a call to mission.

Paying it Forward

In the aftermath of Maggie’s death, Jim and Cyndi created Miracles from Maggie, a foundation to help other families navigate serious childhood illness and devastating diagnoses.

Through their non-profit, they provide emotional support and financial gifts, helping with everything from airfare and lodging to gifting a little girl a Bernese Mountain dog.

“It’s about paying it forward,” said Jim.

“We’ve been there. We are not afraid to sit in the trenches with families,” added Cyndi.

“Service is the biggest help,” Jim continued. “When we’re Jesus’ hands and feet, we feel Maggie’s doing it with us.”

The couple also helps lead a grief ministry at St. Stephen and organizes the monthly Extended Table dinners for Glenwood’s unhoused and underemployed. As caretakers for a local ranch, they also annually host the Winter Special Olympics’ cross-country and snowshoeing events.

“It looks like we’re doing it for others,” said Jim, “but in reality, it heals us.”

Why We’re Catholic

Why do Jim and Cyndi remain Catholic after such suffering? The answers are simple.

“You only have two choices. Where do you want to put your energy? In hope or in despair? Do you want heaven or not? Jesus never said the road would be easy,” Jim explained.

“Jesus wept,” said Cyndi. “He gets it. He doesn’t stand far off. He comes right into the mess, the grief, the brokenness. He entered under our roof — our messy house. And he never left.”