I looked at that perfect marble and thought of Erin. There were many unanswered questions between us, but one thing was certain: I would always love her and pray for her. No matter what she had or hadn’t done, I would always care about what happened to her. I decided to keep that green marble with me as a constant reminder to pray for my daughter. From that day on, every time I reached into my pocket, I’d feel it there and ask God to protect her.
Erin was a sixteen-year-old facing the possibility of a life sentence without parole. I figured she’d need that protection.
Chapter 15
A Message from God
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding. —JOB 38:4
NOW THAT I WAS living back in Emory, I had an amazingly busy schedule. There were follow-up appointments with the surgeons; Virginia drove me to Tyler for those. I went to physical therapy twice a week, and my right arm was regaining strength and function. I was allowed to see Erin three times a week, so every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday involved driving to the Hunt County Juvenile Detention Center, visiting Erin, and then returning home. I continued to see my counselor twice a week, and court hearings and meetings with Erin’s attorney were also sprinkled in.
I hadn’t gone to church since the funeral, partly because I couldn’t imagine going back there and facing all those people. It would be too painful. But I also hadn’t gone back to church because God and I were still wrestling. Try as I might, I couldn’t understand why He would take my family and leave me here. Why had I survived the attack that took Penny and the boys?
I had been so vulnerable that night in my house—shot at least four times and lying on the floor unconscious, wedged between the bed and the wall. Why didn’t Charlie or Charles just finish me off? They had shot Penny, but they didn’t stop with that. According to the coroner’s report they had also attacked her with a knife, nearly decapitating her. Why didn’t they do that to me? Why didn’t they shoot me in the back of the head as I lay there immobilized on the floor? It would have been easy enough. Why had every bullet missed major organs and arteries even though they were fired at nearly pointblank range?
Even more perplexing was the fact that I had lost consciousness twice while I was on my bedroom floor. Why did I wake up after the first time? And when I regained consciousness the second time, the house was nearly engulfed in flames. How did I have the strength to get up? Why did I have the presence of mind to find my way to the bathroom, even though the smoke had virtually blinded me? How did I escape without a single burn when I navigated through that tunnel of flames that had been our bathroom?
When I finally got outside into the forty-degree temperatures, why didn’t I go into shock? I had lost so much blood that I kept slipping in the puddle when I struggled to get up off the floor. My T-shirt and pajama pants were soaked with it. Why didn’t I pass out as I hauled my wounded body through three hundred yards of brushy woods? Why didn’t I pass out and drown when I fell into the creek?
I could think of scores of reasons why I should have died that night, but only one reason why I didn’t: God had preserved my life.
He could have taken me at any time during or after the attack, the same way He took Penny, Matthew, and Tyler, but He didn’t. He chose to let me live.
I wanted to understand why.
I didn’t think that was too much to ask.
LOSING MY MARBLE
Although I’d made progress in the month since Penny and the boys died, I was still very fragile. One Saturday on my way to visit Erin, I discovered just how fragile I really was.
Before I was allowed in to see her, I had to pass through a security check, which involved emptying my pockets before walking through a metal detector.
I stood at the counter, and the officer gave me a basket for my wallet, keys, and loose change. When I pulled my keys out of my pocket, Erin’s prayer marble came out too. It slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor.
I broke out of line and chased it as it rolled across the tile floor, headed directly for an office door. But just as I was about to grab it, it rolled under the door. I was just a fraction of a second too late to catch it.
I’m sure everyone else thought I had gone crazy, because I instantly became like a little child. I got down on my hands and knees and felt under the door with my fingers, crying, “My marble! My marble!”
The officer at the metal detector, a kind African-American woman, must have seen the panic in my eyes. She smiled at me. “What’s wrong?”
Tears filled my eyes. “I lost my marble.”
She didn’t understand what I meant, so I explained to her why that marble was so important. I told her that it represented my daughter, Erin, and that it reminded me to pray for her.
The woman was very understanding. “The person who uses that office is gone for the weekend,” she said, “but I’ll see if we can find a key.”
She made a few phone calls and talked to some other staff, but finally she returned, shaking her head. “That office is locked from Friday afternoon till Monday morning, and we couldn’t find an extra key.” Then she handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “If you’ll call this number on Monday morning, we’ll try to get your marble. I’ll leave word with someone so they’ll know to look for it.”
That entire weekend, I could think of nothing else but getting my marble back.
First thing Monday morning, I was on the phone to the juvenile detention center. They opened at eight; I was on the phone at seven fifty-nine. “Did you find my marble?” I asked.
I could hear the smile in the receptionist’s voice. “Yes, they told us the whole story. That is so sweet,” she said. “We’ve got your marble in an envelope. It’s waiting for you anytime you want to come and pick it up.”
I thanked her and told her I’d be right there.
I could have waited until I went for the next visitation, but I didn’t. By now I had a rental car so that I wouldn’t have to impose on others to drive me around. I hopped into that car and drove straight to Greenville. When I got to the receptionist’s desk, I grinned and said, “I lost my marble, and y’all have it.”
We both laughed. Then she handed me a white envelope. I didn’t even wait to get back to my car. I tore the envelope open right there and dumped the marble into my palm. Then I wrapped my fingers around it, closed my eyes, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
I went back out to the car, clutching my marble the whole way. I sat down in the driver’s seat and opened my palm. As I looked at that little green piece of glass, the tears started to flow. That marble was my connection with Erin. Just as it had slipped so easily out of my grasp, I feared that Erin might be slipping away from me too. I wondered if I would ever get to hold her again. And in the privacy of my rented car I wept for my daughter.
AN UNMISTAKABLE ANSWER
I had come to believe that God might have some purpose in everything that had happened. But that belief wasn’t helping in my daily life. I still felt as if my heart had been gouged out and a huge hole left in its place. It might have been too soon to feel any different, but the grief I struggled with every day threatened to overwhelm me.
I wanted to move on with my life, but I still felt just as unsure and blind and helpless as I had when I made the nearly four-hundred-yard trek from my house to Tommy’s in the middle of the night: Stumbling blindly through pitch-black woods. Unable to see my hand in front of my face. Unable to take a step without wondering if I was going to bump into a tree or fall into a creek.
I needed some direction. I needed to know why God had kept me alive that night. I needed an answer, so I decided to drive out to my property and have a heart-to-heart with God.
I’m not sure why I decided that my property was the best place for that talk. I could just as easily have done it in my little bedroom at Larry and Virginia’s. Maybe I just wanted to be close to where Pe
nny and the boys had died. That place was my connection with them, just as the marble had become my connection with Erin.
Although I had visited my property several times with Tommy and others, I had never gone back there by myself. Tommy and Brother Wayne Wolf hadn’t wanted me going out there alone for fear that I might become completely overwhelmed by grief.
But on this day, I knew that I needed to be by myself. I needed privacy. I couldn’t pray, couldn’t say the things I needed to say, with others around. So I got into my rental car and drove out Rains County Road 2370 to pour my heart out to God.
The sun sparkled through the tall, long-needle pines and broadcast bright strips along the earth. But the scarred ground where my house had once stood was a bleak reminder of tragedy.
I kicked the toe of my boot through what little rubble was left. Friends had bulldozed and cleared most of the debris weeks before, so there wasn’t much left but dirt. I crouched down and ran my fingers through the soot, still hoping I might find one more memento, one more connection to Penny, Matthew, and Tyler.
Their voices rang in my ears.
Why hadn’t I been able to save them? Why hadn’t we had a gun? Maybe I could have stopped what happened. I might at least have saved the boys’ lives.
I didn’t understand any of this.
God could have stopped those boys from coming into my house and killing my family. He could have prevented Erin from ever meeting Charlie. No matter how I looked at it, God clearly could have kept all of it from happening.
The ground blurred, and I blinked away tears. I took some soot in my hand and let it fall through my fingers. In that moment, all the pent-up emotion, the frustration, the anger at God, welled right up into my throat. Maybe it wasn’t right to be angry with God, but I couldn’t deny my feelings.
My throat tightened, and bitter tears streamed down my face as I looked toward heaven and cried out loud, “God, why did You do this? I don’t understand it! Why did You take my family and leave me here?” The anger and bitterness flowed from me in a way it never had before. “I need an answer! I need it now! I need it today!”
And that’s when I saw it.
About fifteen feet away, a scorched piece of paper rested against the trunk of a pine tree, almost as if someone had set it there.
For a moment, I forgot my anger. Maybe it was a page from one of Penny’s cookbooks or one of Tyler’s picture books. I didn’t care. Whatever it was, I would treasure it. I walked over to take a look.
I was amazed that the piece of paper had survived at all. It had been exposed to the elements for six weeks of North Texas winter and early spring weather. Several heavy thunderstorms had blown through. Many times, even houses didn’t survive those storms, let alone a half-burned scrap of paper.
I bent down to look at it. The smoke and heat had blackened the edges and turned the paper dark brown. It looked as if it might fall apart if I touched it, but I had to risk it. Even if it crumbled to pieces, I had to pick it up.
I gently took the page in my hand.
As I read the first line, my throat tightened. For a few seconds I just stood there, a river of tears streaming down my face. But these were not tears of anger. They were joyful tears. Amazed tears. Awestruck tears. Humbled tears. They were the tears of a man who had just received an answer from God.
The first few lines of that burned page read, “I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me to struggle along without them. And I guess I still don’t totally understand that part of it. But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.”
I fell to my knees and wept before God, thanking Him for caring enough to remind me that in the midst of the horrible tragedy I was living through, He was still there. And He had everything under control.
When Job asked God for an answer, God met him where he was. And although God never gave Job an explanation for His actions, He did give him a clear answer. He said, in effect, “Job, I am sovereign. I’m in control. And you have to trust Me.”
And now, God had met me where I was too.
I believe that God preserved that single page for that exact moment. Out of the burned rubble of my house and everything in it, somehow God guarded a fragile piece of paper. He kept it from the fire. He protected it from bulldozers, trucks, and volunteer clean-up crews. He preserved it through several heavy Texas thunderstorms and high winds. And even though I’d already returned to my property five or six times, I never saw it until that day.
But when I was in the darkest well of grief, trying to understand what had happened and why, God allowed me to find that page. And through it He said, “Terry, I’m not going to give you an explanation. I’m not going to tell you why all this happened. But I am going to tell you that I am sovereign. I’m in control. And you have to trust Me.”
In that moment, my joy in Christ returned.
Unretouched image of the actual page Terry found.
Chapter 16
Finding Purpose
“I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD
“plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future
and a hope.” —JEREMIAH 29:II
I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me behind to struggle along without them. And I guess I still don’t totally understand that part of it. But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.
THAT BURNED SCRAP of paper was a miracle—at least to my way of thinking. Perhaps it wasn’t a parting-of-the-Red-Sea or burning-bush type of miracle, or one of those so-called miracles in which people think they see the face of Jesus in an Idaho potato. And it probably wouldn’t qualify as a miracle according to a strict theological definition of the term. But, as a friend of mine later said, it was certainly an act of God’s providence.
I wasted no time buying a picture frame and putting the paper under glass. I had no desire to make it into a shrine, but I did want to preserve it. It was so badly scorched that it would easily crumble if I handled the paper itself too much. But I needed to handle it. I needed to read it carefully. I wanted to digest every word.
When I found the page, I had read only the first line. Then I’d started crying, and my eyes were so blurred with tears that I couldn’t make out much more. Back in my bedroom, I began to read it more closely. I’d already received a wonderful message from God in just the first three sentences. I wanted to see what else, if anything, might be there for me.
I didn’t recognize the book the page had come from. It appeared to be a novel or story of some kind. Unfortunately, the edges of the page were burned, and all the identifying information had been lost. The book must have been one of Penny’s—she was the reader in our family—but what the name of the book was, I had no idea.
Near the top of the page, above the lines I’d first read, I noticed four incomplete lines that trailed off into the blackened edges. They were formatted differently from the rest of the text, as if they were poetry. I recognized them almost instantly as lines from the book of Job.
The first line read, “ . . . the beautiful Pleiades?”
On the next line, “ . . . ose the cords of Orion?”
I’d read Job so much recently that I had no difficulty identifying the passage. Those lines were from Job 38:31 (NIV), “Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?”
The next two lines, also from Job, were more complete.
“. . . one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
“Let him who accuses God answer him!”
Those words were from Job 40:2 (NIV), “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!”
In these verses, God confronts Job’s self-righteousness and presumption in accusing God of treating him unfairly. God is saying to Job, “If you think you know so much, stand up and answer me.” I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps God was issuing a similar challenge to me. I certainly had challen
ged Him in my mind and heart.
The sentence following the lines I had read when I first found the page struck me almost as powerfully: “Justine’s voice reverberated through his thoughts: ‘Maybe God knew we needed you. ’”
Quite frankly, the thought had never entered my mind that God had preserved my life because someone might need me. Ever since the murders, I had been so overwhelmed by my own grief and pain that I hadn’t considered the possibility that I might be able to do something for someone else. I felt so weak and fragile. I couldn’t imagine how I could be of any use to God, but there was always the possibility that God had kept me alive so that He could use me in some way.
In the next paragraph, Thomas, the central character, comes to grips with the fact that God still has something for him to do: “I know that You’ve brought Justine and those children into my life. And they need me. Lord, You could have taken my life that day, but You spared it. And You’ve gone on sparing it. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now, but if I can help them, please let me do it.”
One line in that paragraph really reached out and grabbed me: “Lord, You could have taken my life that day, but You spared it. And You’ve gone on sparing it.”
I had no idea how God spared Thomas’s life, but I knew for certain that He had spared mine. Humanly speaking, there was no reason I should still be walking around. Yet here I was. And although I had no idea what it was, God had a purpose for me.
The last two paragraphs on the page show how Thomas finds peace through submitting to God’s sovereignty over his life:
Thomas closed the drapes and stood alone in the dark room. For the first time in two years, he was at peace with God and with himself. He knew what he had to do. Justine and her children would be safe, even if he had to die to make sure of it. Thomas walked over to the bed and flopped down on top of the bedspread. Almost at once he fell into a deep slumber.
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