He shook his head and smiled. “Mr. Files was my father,” he said. “I’m Buck.”
Ms. Tanner thought highly of Buck and his skill as a defense attorney. She told me that if she were ever in need of someone to defend her against a criminal charge, Buck Files was the man she would call.
That was good enough for me.
The legal process wouldn’t start heating up for another month or so, but I was glad that when it did, I’d have Buck Files in my corner.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
Once I had moved into my RV and was living next door to my old property, on Tommy and Helen’s, it was time to begin preparing for my eventual move back home. I knew I’d have to move back there sooner or later, but I also knew that I couldn’t go back to it just as it used to be.
The debris from the burned house had been pretty well cleaned up, thanks to Tommy and some other friends, but there was still plenty to do. For one thing, I wanted to clear away a lot of the trees. Before the attack, our house couldn’t be seen from the road. I needed to change that.
I also wanted to clear a lot of the land between my property and Tommy’s. That stretch was made up of mostly tall, long-needle pine trees and short, thick cedars. I loved the pines, and most of their branches were twenty or thirty feet high, with only the bare trunks down low. But I decided the cedars had to go. When I escaped from our burning house that night, the land between our properties was so thick with brush and cedars that I couldn’t even see Tommy and Helen’s house. When the time came to move back, I wanted all possible escape routes clear.
So as I began to regain my strength and the mobility in my right arm, Tommy and I started clearing the land between our two properties. Tommy brought his tractor, and a friend of his brought over a bulldozer. At one point we had cleared so much growth, both trees and brush, that we had a burn pile as high and wide as an average one-story house.
We also built up the driveway and leveled a pad where I would eventually move my RV. By my choice, the pad was directly over the spot where my old house had been, where Penny and the boys had died.
Some people thought I was crazy for wanting to move back there. For me, it was the only choice. I was not going to let Charlie Wilkinson drive me from my home and my land. It wouldn’t be easy to move back there, and I definitely wasn’t ready yet, but I was going to do it. I would face the fear and start my new life right where my old life had ended.
BACK TO WORK
Another step in starting over was going back to work. Ironically, this was one area where I had more going for me now than I did before the attack. I actually had two jobs I could go to. I could return to my old position at Praxair, or I could take the new job with The Henry Group that Ben had offered me the night before my family was killed. Although I was extremely grateful to Ben for holding the job offer open for two months while I recovered, I decided to return to work at Praxair.
For one thing, I would be returning to something I knew. Starting a new job would be stressful. I’d face a learning curve, new people, unknown pressures. Praxair was a known quantity. I knew my job, my coworkers, my boss’s expectations. Plus, Praxair was willing to let me ease back into my schedule rather than immediately have to go back to a full-time routine.
I returned to work on Monday, May 5. For the first month, I worked only half days, and I was also allowed flexible hours. I was still going to physical therapy off and on and to counseling once a week. There were still court dates and meetings with attorneys, and I knew that I needed the freedom to take time off work for those.
Another area where Praxair was flexible with me was in regard to the need to be “on call.” Although that responsibility was part of the job, Praxair gave me the freedom to decide when I thought I was ready to take on that responsibility again. I was most afraid of that part of the job because a call could come in the middle of the night and I’d have to go out. It was still difficult for me to go out at night, but my biggest fear was coming home to a dark RV.
I knew I couldn’t face that yet. In fact, I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever be able to go out at night again.
I continued to work with Praxair until September of that year, and I never worked another on-call shift.
One final reason I returned to Praxair was the way the company had stood by me throughout my hospitalization and all the hard times that followed. Bryan, my boss, had encouraged me to get counseling, hired my attorney, and encouraged me to keep going. Roger Pippin, my coworker, had visited me in the hospital and brought me a Bible. In fact, almost all my fellow employees had visited me in the hospital.
When the time came for me to return to work, Bryan even paved the way for me. He met with all the other employees and discussed with them how I wanted them to treat me when I came back. He told them that “business as usual” should be their approach. They didn’t need to be afraid of what or what not to say around me. They didn’t need to walk on eggshells. They just needed to pick things up where we left off.
My one regret about my return to Praxair is that Bryan was transferred out before I got back. I’d miss him. He was one of many people God used to minister to me and to teach me how to minister to hurting people.
BACK AT CHURCH
There had been one other step in the process of starting over, and it was one of the most difficult: going back to church. In the two months since the murders, I’d gone into my church only twice, and that was for the funeral and the visitation afterward.
For quite a while I didn’t want to go back to church because I felt God had abandoned me. But over the past few weeks, especially since I’d found my miracle page, a desire had been growing in my heart to go back to God’s people and fellowship with them.
It would be an understatement to say that I was nervous on April 27, the Sunday I went back. I got up that morning and couldn’t manage to eat any breakfast. I had a cup of coffee, but nothing more.
Questions filled my mind. Would I be able to hold myself together, or would I collapse in tears? Could I even manage to enter the building? All these fears and more plagued me as I drove toward Miracle Faith Baptist Church that morning.
I deliberately arrived just minutes before the service began. I figured that would limit the amount of interaction I’d have to endure before I could sit down. When I got to the front doors, I paused, took a deep breath, and then plunged in, just as if I were jumping into a cold swimming pool. I wanted to get the initial shock over with quickly.
The instant I entered the church, I understood something of what the Prodigal Son must have felt when he came back to his father’s house. There were no recriminations. None of the people looked down their noses at me. Instead, Pastor Todd and many of the people gathered around and welcomed me. Indeed, I felt like a long-lost sheep returning to the fold.
Soon we heard the sound of the piano playing, and we all took our seats.
I looked over to where Penny and I used to sit, about two-thirds of the way up on the right side of the church. I couldn’t sit there. There were too many memories. Instead, I walked to the left side and sat in the very last row.
The song leader began the first song, and that is when it began to get difficult.
On the platform was an empty chair where Matthew used to sit and play guitar. I felt a lump form in my throat as that empty chair reminded me of what I’d lost. On the other side of the platform was the piano. Penny used to sit there and make beautiful music, but now someone else played. As the song service progressed, I began to sink back into the depression from which I had slowly been recovering.
After the service I walked back to my car, discouraged and overwhelmed.
I can’t go back. It’s just too painful.
I didn’t think I could handle going to Miracle Faith every week and seeing so many reminders of Penny and the boys. So many memories of Erin and Charlie and the circumstances that had led to the deaths of my family members.
I went home certain that I would never return to Miracle F
aith Baptist Church. But when Sunday rolled around again, I decided to go back one more time. To my surprise, this time was a little less difficult. Each week it got a little easier; the memories were a little less painful. I guess that’s the way I had to approach life in general—one day at a time. Why not take church one Sunday at a time?
So, one Sunday at a time, one week at a time, I eased back into the life and fellowship of believers at Miracle Faith.
Chapter 18
Ministry
[God] comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be
able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the
comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
—2 CORINTHIANS I:4
HURRY UP AND WAIT seemed to be the order of the day where Erin was concerned. Aside from routine court appearances, there wasn’t much going on in the legal arena. Because Erin was in juvenile detention, there was a hearing every ten days to determine whether or not she should remain in custody. There wasn’t any chance that they were going to release her, but they had to go through the motions. I learned not to get my hopes up. But I still attended the hearings, mostly so I could be near Erin and encourage her.
There were hearings for the others, too. About every thirty days a court hearing was held for Charlie, Charles, and Bobbi. These were routine as well. I could have attended the hearings if I’d wanted to, but I chose not to go. I didn’t think I could trust myself to be in the same room with Charlie and Charles.
The months of April and May were the calm before the coming legal storm. As I look back, I can see God’s hand even in that, because He used those two months not only to prepare me for the upcoming trials but also to heal and restore me and prepare me for ministry.
Although God’s hand in preserving the miracle page showed me that He was sovereign and in control of my circumstances, another evidence of His work in my life was the people He brought across my path. Never was that more evident than in how He worked through Rodney Gipson.
I was twelve years old, and Rodney was nineteen when we first met. Rodney began attending Hilltop Baptist Church in the Dallas suburb of Sunnyvale, the same church my parents and I attended. Rodney and I became acquainted with each other, but because of the difference in our ages, our friendship was casual at best.
As the years passed, I grew up and eventually left Hilltop when Penny and I married and began working with the youth at her church in Garland. Rodney got married too, but he and his wife continued to attend Hilltop. Over the years we lost touch with each other. In fact, almost twenty years passed before I saw Rodney again.
When he came to my dad’s funeral in February, we reconnected. The age difference that had seemed so great when we first met really didn’t matter now, and we hit it off. Rodney even called me during the next week to see how I was doing. After Penny and the boys were murdered, he and his wife, Sherrie, became involved in my life in a big way. Rodney called often to check on me and see if I needed anything. But one particular thing he did changed my life.
REVIVAL
About mid-May he called and told me that Hilltop Baptist was having revival services, and he invited me to come. Had it been a few weeks earlier, I might not have gone, but I’d already started going back to church, and that had broken the ice, so to speak. Rodney told me that the evangelist was a man named Andy Russell. Andy was a pastor from New Albany, Mississippi, but he was also very much in demand as a speaker, often preaching twenty to thirty revival weeks a year.
I decided to go, and I wasn’t disappointed. Andy was a good speaker with a strong message. After the service I went to talk with him. As he heard a little of my story, he invited me to come visit him at his hotel the next afternoon.
The next day, Andy and I visited for a few hours. I showed him the pictures I still had of my family, and I showed him the burned page that God had used to turn me around. I shared with him the pain I felt at losing Penny and the boys and the almost unbearable depression I still struggled with.
Andy opened up and began to share some of his own struggles.
Then Andy said, “Let me ask you something. I’m preaching on Job on Tuesday night. Would you be willing to come and share your testimony with the people?”
His invitation took me by surprise.
“I don’t think I could do that,” I said. “I’d probably fall apart and be a blubbering mess.”
Andy was undaunted. “Then come and be a blubbering mess,” he said. “God can use blubbering messes.”
I had no answer for that, so I agreed.
I went to Hilltop on Tuesday, my stomach tied in knots. I wasn’t sure I could go through with what I had agreed to do. It had been only a little more than two months since everything had happened. It was still early in my grief. The wounds were fresh and still very painful.
I sat there waiting for my turn to speak. As the music service progressed, it was all I could do even to sing the songs. But finally, the pastor introduced me. I walked to the platform, dry mouthed and terrified. My hands shook as I held my Bible.
I held the picture of my family and the framed page.
There were only about 125 people in the congregation, but I felt as if I were speaking to a stadium full of people. I looked out over the congregation in the narrow church building and haltingly began to tell my story.
“When I lost my family, I felt that no one cared and that God had abandoned me. I was so depressed that I had planned to take my life.
“But one day I picked up the Bible and began to read the book of Job, and God spoke to me in a way He never had before. I saw in Job the same suffering, the same pain, I was going through. And I saw God’s answer. God asked Job to trust Him even though Job didn’t understand what was going on.
“Just trust me. That was God’s message.
“And so I came to acknowledge that God might have some purpose in what had happened to Penny and the boys and me. But I wanted to know more. I didn’t have to know why the tragedy had happened, but I wanted to understand what God was doing.
“So I went back to my property one day to have a heart-to-heart talk with God. And He answered me through this.”
I held up the page.
“I was standing on the ashes of my burned-out house and crying out to God, telling Him that I need an answer and I needed it that day. And right then I looked and saw this burned piece of paper leaning up against a tree, almost as if God had put it there just for me.
“I picked it up and read the first few lines. This is what they said: ‘I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me behind to struggle along without them. . . . But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.’
“God answered me that day by reminding me that He is in control of my circumstances, even when I don’t understand what is going on. I still don’t know exactly why He saved me, why He preserved my life, but I do know that in His time He’ll show me what He wants me to do. And He’ll do the same for you. He loves you and will be with you in all the circumstances of your life, good and bad. You can trust Him, whatever happens.”
To my surprise, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. My story, however haltingly told, was having an impact on those who were there. Later, when Andy gave the invitation, the altar was flooded with people who were in tears.
When I went home that night to my RV, I couldn’t sleep. I was so excited that I sat up reading my Bible and praying till almost four in the morning. Was it possible that God wanted me to help others by sharing my testimony and telling them what He’d done for me? Second Corinthians says that God comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may share His comfort with others. Was God showing me that He wanted me to share my pain and struggles so that others could see how He had worked in my life?
If I had any doubts about that, they disappeared a few weeks later when Rodney Gipson and I went on a most unusual fishing trip— and never once went fishing.
FISHING TRIP
&n
bsp; Rodney’s wife, Sherrie, sent me a card letting me know that they both wanted to help and encourage me in any way they could. If I ever needed to get away, I could come and stay with them. She also mentioned that Rodney wanted to take me on a fishing trip to a place near Pittsburg, Texas. Rodney’s fishing spot was actually a working cattle ranch that had several private lakes and cabins. He rented a cabin for us and packed up some tackle, and off we went.
We set the alarm for five o’clock so that we could get an early start on our first morning of fishing, but we never made it to the lake.
Rodney and I sat down at the kitchen table to have some breakfast, and it wasn’t long before our discussion turned to Penny and the boys and Erin and all the things I’d been through over the last few months. But this time as I talked about it, something was different.
In previous conversations with my counselor or with other people, my focus had been primarily on my own suffering and pain and on how much it hurt to lose my family and how I felt abandoned by God. Now I found myself talking about how amazing and good God had been to me. I shared in more detail about the remarkable way God had spoken through the page I’d found. I shared not only how God had touched me through the book of Job, but also how I was beginning to develop an insatiable hunger for His Word. Rodney asked questions and probed, and I actually felt energized as I shared what God was doing in my life.
I told Rodney about how I’d been heavily medicating myself to escape the grief but that I felt it was time for me to throw away that crutch and trust God.
On and on we talked, through one, two, three pots of coffee.
Eventually, we noticed that it was past ten thirty in the morning and we had never gone out fishing. But we’d done something much more important. I had begun to realize that when I shared with others how God was working through my tragedy, I could actually see good coming from an unspeakably evil event.
Terror by Night Page 13