Our family has served with missions in some fashion since we adopted our first child from a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1998. We adopted a second child from the Islands in 2003 and have continued serving the Islands with medical and evangelical missions since 2007.
It is a beautiful thing to pursue intimacy with God through His son Jesus and his Spirit and to share it with others.
Why do we share our story? Because we want you to know the God we know! He is a loving Father who cares intimately for each of His children. He is tender in His touch, strong and direct in His truth, generous and selfless in His grace. I want everyone to know the God we know!
Although I have known God since I was a child, I didn’t truly understand who he was as a father, as Jesus’ father, until we lost our oldest child in a vehicle accident in 2016. He is the Father but also beautifully a father! 🥹
The best way to describe it in context is to share an excerpt from “Because She Believed“, the book that God led us to share after our daughter went home to heaven.
May 27 was a normal Friday, like many others that had come and gone before it. There was only one problem; “normal” had taken on a new meaning over the preceding two months.
A little after 11 p.m., Julie and I were startled awake by the ringing of our doorbell. Our first thoughts were of our daughter Kristen. She had texted us an hour earlier, saying that she and her friends were leaving the Speed Street Festival in downtown Charlotte and going to her friend Kim’s house.
I knew this was the moment that God had been preparing me for over the last two months. I prayed the following as I dressed to answer the door, “Please God, if it is your will, remove this cup from me. But if not, then Your will be done.”
You see, two months earlier, on Easter Sunday, as Julie, the girls, and I were preparing to watch the musical The Passion, I had asked God to let me see His heart…and the following was His answer.
God responded to me with a question: “Would you see sin differently if it were your child who had to die for sin? Would the church see sin differently? Would the world see it differently?”
As His words echoed through my soul, I saw my baby’s face. God had allowed me a small glimpse into His heart—a heart that was broken when He sent His Son to die for those who despised Him.
What I did not know on that May night was that God had reminded our daughter Kristen of the following promise on that same Easter Sunday. She had sent a tweet with these verses to her best friend a few hours before we watched the video together.
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26).
Now two months later, my heart wrestled with my mind as I walked down the stairs. My heart still hoped for a different outcome as it pressed in on my quiet resolve, “Is this it? Is this His final word? Is this His answer to my prayer?”
Our concern for Kristen proved warranted as I saw her best friend, Brooke, standing at our front door. She had not let herself in, so we suspected this was not a normal visit. “Kim called to tell me Kristen was involved in an accident as they left the festival,” she explained. “I don’t know any details, other than the accident involved a vehicle.”
I know the first “gut” reaction, especially as a parent, would be to recoil from the very idea that God would take someone through two months of struggle as He did with me prior to my daughter’s accident. But you need to know the context of that time with Him. Without context, the words will be lost in the noise of our human emotions.
Although it was a spiritual wrestling match, it was, at its core, an intimate time with the Lord. The surpassing glory of that experience touched my soul with such comfort and joy that I lack the words to describe it. “Beauty in the brokenness” was the description that came to mind the first time someone asked what it was like to spend that time with Him.
The central truth that permeates this story and my life is this: the God of the universe wants to be intimate with you and with me, and that is His normal. When He acts in accordance with His nature, why do we perceive it as exceptional?
As a father, it is my job to protect and nurture my family. When God revealed that Kristen was going to serve a higher call than her presence here would allow, I struggled to reconcile my desire to hold her and protect her with my faith in the One who was calling her home. God said to me, “Child, if you failed your daughter, then I surely failed my Son when I sent Him to the cross to suffer and die for those who despised Him.”
His Spirit doesn’t just “bear witness” with our Spirit one time or on rare occasions; His Spirit is always with us. He is patiently waiting to walk with us and talk with us, but He does not demand our attention.
The pain, the sorrow, the frustration, and the fury of my struggle were swallowed up in the glory of His presence. Each intimate moment with God’s Spirit is a taste of heaven and the eternal glory that lies beyond.
God was gentle with me as I struggled against the inevitable. He carried me through the trial like a ship being carried by the wind and the waves. I turned one way and then the other, looking for a way out of the storm. In the end, God’s love guided me on a course that would bring peace to my spirit as He worked all things together for good.
Jesus says to us: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
God has carried us through many storms and has always proven to be faithful. How precious is the gift of faith He has given us. This gift is not to be hidden under a basket. It is meant to give light to a world that is lost in the darkness. That is the purpose of this site. It is a testimony of the grace of God in our lives and of His light in our darkest hour and on our brightest day.
Several months after Kristen’s accident, I had a conversation with a close friend over lunch. He commented that he hoped people would see the beauty of God’s intimacy as He gently carried us through this trial. He also said he hoped that everyone would be encouraged to seek God’s heart without reservation.
As he spoke those words, the following question arose out of the depths of my heart. “Would you do it all over again? Would you ask God to let you see His heart if you knew this trial would follow?” The answer to that question was obvious immediately in my spirit. Without any doubt and without any hesitation, the answer is, “Yes, I would do it all over again!” God is a good, good Father, and His grace is sufficient for all our needs. He has always been faithful with us. How could I not continue to ask Him to reveal more of His heart?