Hi friends! On today’s episode of Draw Near to Me, we will continue with the third part of Ron’s faith journey. For those who prefer to read, today’s content is also posted below. Today’s story reminds me of how God does not disqualify us from living an abundant life, even if we have made mistakes in our past. It also shares a hard truth. Sometimes God will use a deep valley in our life to bring what matters into laser focus. Since this is a man’s testimony, Jeff, my husband, will be the voice for Ron’s story again. If you enjoy this post, please share it with others using the share button below and consider doing a free or paid subscription. With that, let’s dive into Ron’s story. Enjoy!
After my divorce, things did not change for a while. I continued going through my daily routine. I still worked at the post office and that was where I eventually met Mona. She worked there as well. When people asked me what first attracted me to her, I responded, “Have you seen her?” I’ll be honest with you, she was cute. Just beautiful. She still is.
When I met Mona, I went into hot pursuit again. I’d be making a fool out of myself trying to get her attention. She was recently divorced as well and understood that experience. Mona also cared a lot about my kids. She really thought about their needs as well. When I eventually asked Mona to marry me, she said no. I think she knew it may have been too soon for my kids. It was not too soon for my sake, but for their sake it was. I think she probably saw a little bit of pain in my children from the divorce.
We dated for a couple years, and I remained persistent in pursuing her. I think I asked her to marry me about six times! One day, Mona and I had gone out to this pub out on Heckscher drive. It was actually a biker bar. It was crowded and there were around 100 bikers in the place with their girlfriends. A friend of mine had a band at the time and he was up on-stage playing saxophone. I used to do a little singing myself, so when my friend called me up on stage, Mona thought I was going to go sing with the band. I had a different plan.
Instead of going on stage to sing, I got up there, got on my knee, and said, “Y’all see that blonde haired girl back there?” Everyone turned to look at her. Then I continued, “I’ve asked her five times to marry me, and she said no. Five times! This is the last time I’m going to ask her.” Then I looked at Mona and said, “Will you marry me?” She said, “Yes!” I mean, she kind of had to say it in a way. Everyone in the bar was looking at her like they were not going to let her leave the place unless she agreed! So that is how after asking six times, she finally said yes to me. We are still married after 27 wonderful years.
After we got married, we had a little combined family. Mona had her daughter, Alexia, from her previous marriage, and Nick, my youngest son, was with us at the time. We were happily married and deeply in love with each other. We had both learned things from our previous marriages that we were careful to protect against in our marriage.
One major thing we remained very conscious of throughout the years was the power of our words. Hurtful words are like a launched missile that we can’t take back. Even though everybody is going to argue at some point, there is another level of wounding that occurs when we verbally attack someone personally. That is so hurtful. Once we do it, we can say sorry all we want, but that damage is already there. Mona and I knew that, so we made sure we were careful with our words to each other.
Everything was going well in our lives. Then, very early on Monday morning, October 13th, 2009, our phone rang. My mind immediately thought about how I had kids all over. I knew it was not good to be getting a phone call at three o’clock in the morning. Something was not right.
I picked up the phone and I heard my daughter Angie’s voice on the other end. She said, “Daddy, Chris has been involved in an accident. You need to come to the hospital. They’ve life flighted him to Shands hospital.” As I quickly woke up Mona, I kept asking myself if I was really awake. Did I really hear what I think I heard? But it wasn’t a dream.
Mona and I got our heads together, quickly grabbed our stuff, and drove down to the hospital. As soon as we walked in, we were bombarded with family. They told us, “If you want to see him alive, you need to go see him now. He’s broken.” Mona and I were shaken. We both loved him so much.
The details began pouring in. Christian had a little crotch rocket type of motorcycle. He had been out on the road and was going really fast that night. If I had to guess, he may have been doing at least 80mph. It was a dark night when suddenly a big dog just stepped out in the road in front of him. He did not even have a chance to try to avoid the dog, and it was literally sliced in half.
Meanwhile, Christian flew through the air almost 200 feet and then rolled for another hundred feet. As he was thrown out from his bike, his legs got hung up in the handlebar. With that high rate of speed, his hips were ripped. The impact did the rest of the damage. He was so broken. Almost all his bones, from his collarbones, his breast bones, and legs, were broken. His hips were crushed.
When I walked into the hospital room to see him, he was all busted up. The only thing that wasn’t busted was his head. Fortunately, he had a very good helmet on, so his beautiful head was still intact. But that was it. Everything else on his body seemed broken.
There I was, standing in this room, with the heavy realization that I was fixing to plan the funeral for my first son. He was only about eighteen or nineteen at the time. I kept thinking, “I was in the room when you were born.”
I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I knew to do was what I saw my grandfather do when he needed something. He would start praying. So that’s what I did. I did not leave the hospital for two weeks. I just walked up and down the hallway, begging, and begging, and begging God to save Christian. I knew making a deal with God was not a good idea. There was nothing in the Bible that indicated we should make deals with God, but I will be honest, I did. I told God, “If you will let him live, I promise you I’ll spend the rest of my life pointing him to the cross.”
During that time, I was confronted with a hard reality. The thing was I knew enough to know that I had not done what I was supposed to do as his father. I realized my biggest failure in Christian’s life was not necessarily leaving him and divorcing his mother. My biggest failure was not telling him about Jesus. I knew that if he died in that hospital he wasn’t going to heaven. He had no relationship with Christ.
Now, all I could do was to keep asking God for another chance with my son.
To be continued.
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