When we lost our oldest son in January 2003, at age 25, my grief was compounded by the fact that Danny had drifted so far from God in his last few years. He had been a difficult teenager, but I remember crying out to God (in 1993? 1994?) and having Him speak to my heart to tell me that Danny would indeed be restored to Himself. I was given no time table, but I believed. Still, ten years had passed, and I had seen little that would indicate a return to the God that Danny once professed to love. I began to question if his conversion experience was genuine, and at some points I wondered if I had imagined God speaking to me that night so long ago.

Fast forward to 1/1/2003. We received the most awful of phone calls from California telling us that Danny was the first death in Los Angeles County for the year. Devastating does not begin to describe the agony. I cry even now as I remember… and my greatest concern was where was he now? Was he a believer? Had he just gone along for the ride as a child because this was expected? I was only 44 at the time, so how could I live the remainder of my years with this agony? – it was too much to bear. I prayed, and I journaled, and I BEGGED God to give me some peace. Then one night, two months after his death, I was searching through a desk drawer. I had looked many times over the past few years for the bulletin from his baptismal service but could not locate it. In fact, I had searched this particular drawer at least a dozen times – I wanted to read his life verse. That night, I felt God leading me to the place I had looked so many times, and this time it was RIGHT THERE. I found the verse he had chosen as a 9-year-old boy to be read by his father. It was Romans 4:5, “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Then – I remembered. The other kids had all chosen John 3:16, which is good, but Danny had picked this verse because he liked the meaning. I remembered asking him if he knew what it meant, and he did indeed. That was the first touch towards mending my broken heart.

Summer arrived, and I was again doubting. I am so weak of faith that I am ashamed to be admitting this to the world, but I still could not find it in me to be certain he was with our Lord. Over and over, I begged and cried out to Jesus for help. Out of the blue, one hot July day, I went to the mailbox and found a letter from his girlfriend in California. She had gone through some of Danny’s textbooks and found a letter jotted on the back of a school worksheet. This had been written in September 2002, and there was no doubt that it was Danny’s handwriting. It was a confession letter to God the Father, asking for help to get his life back in order. He admitted to being a stubborn man, and he listed the sins he wanted to repent of and make right. In it, he claimed the blood of Jesus. The funny thing is – he seldom bothered to write things down. Yet our God of the little details knew that some day a mom would have to know that her son yearned to be in fellowship once again with the Father. I fell to my knees and spent the weekend praising God and crying for the son I had lost, yet found.