My Story - Bad "B" Movie- Part 1

Six years ago, I was preparing for our move out of state to the farm which had been in my husband’s family for over 100 years. I had it all planned. I would start seminary in September, we would start construction on our home in January and then in September, once the house was completed, I would return to work. Sounds like a good responsible plan, right? But guess what…those were my plans. There was a whole different plan coming down the pike and I was already on a journey of learning what it is to truly rely on God. We had lost our community of fourteen years because I had not listened when God spoke to me and warned me that there was something unsavory going on and in September, the previous year, I was blindsided by the unsavory shenanigans of church leaders who had more than God’s agenda at heart. The ending result was a year of devastating darkness and pain, not only for me, but for my family.

I was eager to start anew. I knew God had great things in store for me. Once we had settled in and had been living in a tiny rental house for a few months, we began the task of preparing to build. A misreading of the lease on the property where we were to build left us with the shock that the lease was not to end for another year. We went to the lessee and he agreed to sign a release for us to begin. We were rocking along and then two weeks before the bulldozer was to arrive, we get a call. He refused to sign the release. I remember sitting on the sofa, looking out the window, devastated. Tears were streaming down my face as I felt I had been dealt another blow. But I remember saying to my husband, “God has His reasons. We just have to believe it is for the best. But I sure don’t understand.” I felt like we had already been through enough! Little did I know what was to come.

We waited the year and the following January, we celebrated and had a ground breaking. Our time had come. In February, the first earthmover appeared and the process began. It was an exciting time for our entire family. I readjusted my plans a little bit and moved my “back to work” date to the following September.

Elliot was struggling a little bit, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with life, nor who he was. He was floundering and searching for meaning (so much like his mother). He decided to come home from school after finals in the Spring, to spend time at the farm, helping me paint the house and getting his head straight.

I spent my drive time to school each day, praying for my two boys. I remember one day, as I was driving in, saying to God, “Lord, I have a peace about my oldest, but I just can’t get a peace about Elliot. PLEASE, give me some peace.” It would be two weeks later, the morning after his 21^st birthday, forty five minutes after I had an overwhelming peace in my heart about Elliot, that I would find out he had been shot in the head by a friend of his, someone we had all loved. The day he was to come home, we brought him “home” in the back of a hearse.

Needless to say, my plans were totally disrupted. Plans? What are plans? It was a matter of just trying to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. There is a whole section of life – survival – that I have little memory of. I do remember vividly, that God called me to forgive the one who did this. That wasn’t part of my plan. I begged Him to not make me. My spirit knew I had to.

I went back to school in the Fall because that was really all I knew to do. I remember wanting to give up and hearing Elliot saying, as only he could, “don’t do it Mom. Don’t do it.” And so I continued. The school was a loving and supportive community.

We had to go through a trial. It was a two year and two month grueling process, but law enforcement where he was shot, were absolutely wonderful to us. Nothing was done or decided without our input. We had homeowners insurance to deal with and because the family of this young man would not cooperate, we had to take legal action, something we did not want to deal with. But in the process, the steps we had to go through, life narratives, photo narratives and letters from people who knew him, as painful as it was, revealed the beauty of the man and the life we were privileged to share with him.