Sample chapter:
"I've been shot! encountering christ in trauma"
Chapter One
Hemmed in Behind and Before
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Deuteronomy 31:8
I have dealt with special needs during all my years as a mother: in public, trying desperately to get my disabled son services and encouraging other parents dealing with the lonely world of autism; in private, barely keeping it together as the tantrums grew in proportion to his body. I’ve asked God “Why?” so many times in Sam’s 23 years. “What good can autism have?”
Sam’s autism made it extremely difficult to teach him about God. Santa Claus, you can see, touch, hear, talk with one-on-one at the mall. God can’t be seen. You can’t touch Him. Hearing His voice is sometimes really hard—especially when the noise of life interrupts. Helping Sam understand about God started out with us praying for people in ambulances as they sped past us, sirens blaring. Teaching Sam in concrete ways about God built his own faith and solidified mine. Still, in desperately terrible moments, Sam will still ask God, “Why can’t I be normal like other people?”
Why questions have a tendency to pull us down in the muck and mire where we are trapped by comparing ourselves to other people’s mud holes in which they are trapped. Why questions expose discontentment in some form: Why can’t we have a bigger house–we have six people living in this one! I need a dog! Oh.My.Word! Shiplap!
It took the events of November 28, 2015 and afterwards to make me realize that contentment is rooted in Christ alone. I learned that contentment breeds surrender, and surrender leads to submission.
Whoa. Dirty word, that. Submission. It conjures up images of slaves and bowing down to masters. Yes. Exactly. When we learn that Christ is our Master, and we are as slaves to Him, not out of fear or force but out of love and gratitude–it changes our whole mindset about submitting to Him, for the sake of our walk with Him and the witness we have of Him to others. Our walk takes on a kingdom-focus, Christ-centered point of view. In the middle of tragedies, though, it is hard to think about such things.
On the morning of November 28, 2015, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, my husband Greg, son Jacob, daughter Laura, and I were wrapping up our holiday project at his parents’ home in Lynchburg, Virginia. It seems like every trip to their house has a project invested in it, and that’s okay. We enjoy helping them; they help us when they visit. This time, we had worked with his parents and brother to clean, declutter, and reorganize the basement to make more livable space for them. As we sorted boxes and reminisced about things we found, five hours away in Charlotte, North Carolina, a black car pulled up at a 23-year-old woman’s house. Keyona looked outside and saw that her boyfriend’s friend Terrell and his wife were sitting in the driveway, waiting on her boyfriend Darren to finish his cigarette while he sat on Keyona’s front porch. He finished and power-walked to the car.
While his wife was driving, Terrell told Darren of the plan: drive up to Hillsborough and meet a man to get money, go back and hang out with Terrell’s cousin in Greensboro, then come back to Charlotte. Both Terrell and Darren were convicted felons; Darren, who hadn’t hit the six-week post-release mark from prison yet, was carrying a silver .360 revolver in his pocket. He sat in the car during the four-hour drive to Hillsborough, texting Keyona the whole time. The plan was a drug deal.
About four in the afternoon, we waved goodbye to Greg’s family, and started our long five-hour drive back home to Gastonia on the southwest side of Charlotte. Driving through Greensboro two hours into the trip, we chatted with Jacob about being on Western Carolina University’s marching band that semester. As a freshman music major, he was excited and thrilled about marching with his tenor sax.
Laura talked non-stop to herself. At five years old, she was listening to her Bubby’s excited jabber but was more interested in what she, herself, had to say. So she looked outside despite dusk settling in, and talked to the window.
The talk after dinner focused on catching Jacob up on how our oldest son, Sam, was doing in the group home for people with developmental delays, and how Elli, Greg’s daughter, was doing in her last year of high school in Pennsylvania.
At 7:30 in the evening, a man walked into the rest stop in Cabarrus County on I-85 Southbound. Traffic was light and the other guests were leaving in their cars. The custodian, who was preparing his cleaning cart for his last rounds, saw the man come in, spit into the water fountain, and go to the restroom. Disgusted, the custodian took out a spray bottle of bleach water and wiped out the water fountains. As he rinsed the bowl with water, he used the bleach water rag to wipe and polish the whole fountain, scrubbing off all the fingerprints that had dulled the shiny chrome.
The man walked out of the restroom and left the facility, getting into his vehicle. The custodian watched him walk out; as the doors opened, he saw two new guests smoking outside in the chilly November air, beside the automatic doors. The bigger of the two men had dreadlocks and was wearing a baggy white shirt and jean shorts. The shorter had dreads down to his waist, pulled back under a floppy hat. He was wearing a red and white shirt under a jacket. The custodian just figured, like most people traveling on I-85 Southbound, that they needed to stretch their legs. Still, those were some long dreads…
Traveling down I-85 Southbound, we talked about the special church service planned for the next morning. Our church had planned a Concert of Prayer for the two services that Sunday, with the first service starting at 8:30 a.m. and again at 11. We were excited about participating in a service dedicated just to prayer. In this tender moment, I shared with Greg something the Lord had laid on my heart: that He was about to bless us. Greg agreed; he had experienced that encouragement as well.
Continuing down the interstate, we laughed over fun family memories, like going to theme parks. Laura stopped talking; her interest was piqued: she asked questions about princesses and castles and we all answered them, smiling and laughing as we shared stories.
Traffic was amazingly light that evening so we made good time heading home from spending the holiday in Virginia. The sweet tea from dinner sneaked up on us and we soon needed a restroom break. Driving down I-85, we were in Concord, and Greg turned off the interstate into a rest area parking lot.
It would be the last time he drove the SUV.
There were two buildings at this particular rest area: one for the restrooms, and the other for vending machines. Jacob went ahead into the restroom building and I followed, with Greg and Laura bringing up the rear, holding hands and chatting. I noticed a man walking from the vending building; he had an incredibly distinctive walk–a powerful swagger as though he owned the place. As a writer who notices such things, I took note of it. I looked ahead and there was another man, shorter than the first, with moles all over his face and a floppy hat on his head, with long dreadlocks pulled back. As it was getting chilly in the twilight hours, I didn’t think much more about it, and went to the ladies’ room.
Greg waited in the lobby with Laura; I came out and took her into the ladies’ room. After she finished and washed her hands, we joined Jacob in the lobby. Greg was in the men’s room. I decided to let Laura run around outside, so the three of us walked through the door and past those two guys.
The brick patio right outside of the door was in a courtyard of sorts, with concrete squares surrounded by red bricks that formed diamond shaped-paths. Jacob chased Laura, saying, “I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you!” She giggled as she skipped along the paths.
I smiled while watching Jacob and Laura play. Having a funny feeling, I looked up. The two guys were watching us intently. They watched my daughter skip on the brick paths. Their eyes followed Jacob as though they were sizing him up. I didn’t like the feeling I had, and called Laura back to me as she was skipping too far to my right.
The guys looked at me then at the door. Again, they looked at me and my children. After a head nod to each other, they turned with deliberation and walked inside the building. I sighed and rested a little easier: at least they weren’t watching my kids.
Just a few moments later, a single, deafening shot pierced the solitude. Time moved so fast and so slowly at the same time. We started walking quickly toward the restroom building as the two guys sprinted out the door and past us. It did not process at that second what was going on.
“Help me!” I heard my beloved scream through the open door. “Help me!”
The three of us ran inside. Greg was on his belly in the men’s room doorway floor, blood gushing from his nose. A pool of blood was under his face. “I’ve been shot!” he screamed.
There are moments in your life in which you don’t even recognize your own voice. A primal, guttural scream launched from the depths of my soul: “No!” In the same moment, I looked at Jacob. We had understood, at the same exact time, what had happened: Those two guys, who had watched us outside, had shot Greg.
Jacob turned on a dime and bounded outside. Screaming at the guys who we could not see, he tried to bolt after them. I was right behind him, hearing Greg screaming, “No, Jacob! They will kill you!” Somehow, I grabbed Jacob’s muscular body and threw him back towards the doors.
“Call 911!” I screamed at Jacob as I ran to the custodian’s office. I screamed at him, “Please! My husband’s been shot! Call 911!” I then realized he was, in fact, on the phone with the emergency dispatcher.
Greg was on his belly, blood still coming from his nose and pooling on the floor under his face. “Get my wallet,” he said, reaching under himself and pulling the car keys from his jeans pocket; they slid across the floor.
I took his wallet from his back pocket and picked the keys off the floor. It then dawned on both of us: they didn’t take anything. Greg had come out of the stall and was washing his hands at the sink. The two guys came in and stood on either side of him as he stood, washing his hands at the basin. By their actions, the men were herding him toward the sink and away from the doorway. The tall one with the powerful stride pulled a gun and pointed it at Greg’s head. No words had been said. Fight-or-flight took over: Greg turned and bolted for the door; three zig-zagging steps, then: bang! He had immediately collapsed on the floor, all three-hundred pounds of him, face first–too fast to even bring his arms up to catch himself. He hit so hard the floor tiles cut into the bridge of his nose and between his eyebrows. While a little blood was on the back of his shirt surrounding the hole, all the blood that had pooled under him came from those tile imprints.
He had been shot in the back from three feet away.
It was a kill shot.
Laura was sitting on the floor, holding her legs with her arms and rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face. Over and over she began to cry out: “My Daddy’s dead, my Daddy’s dead!”
“I’m not dead, Princess!” Greg yelled out, desperately trying to reach her through words when he could not physically get to her. “Daddy’s not dead! I’m right here!”
I picked her up and she held me tight, crying. Greg called to me, steadying himself: “Terrie, I cannot feel my legs.”
“Noooo!” screaming, crying, holding Laura, I cried out, “Jesus, have mercy!”
At that moment, a man came in the rest area lobby and saw the situation. “What happened?” he exclaimed. “Are you okay? What can I do to help?” We heard sirens through the closed door, coming from the interstate.
“Hold her!” I handed this total stranger my daughter, who hugged him. Laura was not one to go with strangers, but she willingly reached for this man. He walked the floor with her, asked her name, and rocked her as she sobbed on his shoulder. It was a strangely peaceful scene in the midst of the chaos.
Jacob, finished with the phone call, knelt down beside Greg. “What can I do?” he asked, kicking his lifeguard first-aid training into gear. Greg asked about the entrance wound. Jacob accessed the situation: there was a hole in the back of his shirt, a little blood around the hole in the shirt, but no exit wound.
Any other time, if Greg would get cut and see his own blood, he would pass out within three and a half minutes. This time–Jesus. Greg did not pass out at all, though he was staring at a growing pool of blood. He had the presence of mind, while I was on the phone with his mother and losing what sanity I had, to access himself: airway, check. Breathing, yes. Cardio: pulse is there.
Laying on the floor, Greg prayed, “Lord, just let me take care of my family.” The presence and peace of Christ was immediately upon him, as though Jesus hunkered down on the floor right next to him. I gave you a desk job two years ago for this purpose. You have breath in your body.
Greg looked at his arms, outstretched, and the puddle of blood under his face. My body was broken, My blood was shed…Greg heard Christ’s gentle voice. In that moment, he understood: “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed,” [Isaiah 53:5 NIV].
A lone tear fell as Greg silently thanked Jesus.
Two state troopers ran in the building, and while one knelt beside Greg, the other kept everyone inside and secured the building. He started asking us all questions. The one kneeling took notes as Greg gave him detailed descriptions, which the trooper relayed to other officers via radio. We heard the whirling buzz of police helicopters above the building as paramedics came in with a gurney and started administering aid to Greg.
In a blur of activity and tears, Greg was loaded up on the gurney. Headed out the door, he turned to me: “Terrie, I love you. I’m okay. Be safe on the way to the hospital.”
I collapsed on the floor, ugly crying. Jacob picked me up and held me. Tears were actively flowing down my boy’s cheeks. The man holding Laura stroked the back of her head as she silently cried.
As we walked outside with the trooper that had been asking questions, we were flooded by the red lights of the ambulance intermingled with the lights from police cruisers flying up the rest area drive.
As the paramedics were trying to get an IV in Greg in the ambulance, I confirmed with the trooper that he was being transported to the main hospital in Charlotte. The trooper looked at me, my face streaked with tears, and looked at Jacob.
“Can you drive?” the trooper asked Jacob.
“Yes!” exclaimed Jacob with confidence. “How do you get to the hospital?”
The trooper didn’t try too hard to suppress a grin. He asked me the same question. “Yes,” I said. “I have to do something.” The trooper nodded; he understood. He walked over, hugged me, and said he was praying.
I reached out for Laura, who flung herself on me from the stranger. I thanked him profusely and asked his name. All I heard was “Elroy.”
The youth pastor of our church, Chris, met us in the emergency department waiting room about ten minutes after we arrived. His daughter was with him and took charge of Laura. We couldn’t see Greg as the ER team was working on him and accessing the damage. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was really only about thirty minutes, we were called to the private family room.
A detective greeted us and started asking questions. Jacob and I answered each one, giving descriptions of the two guys. Chris was in the room, praying and providing emotional support. The door opened and a triage doctor walked in and sat down.
He explained that the .380 caliber bullet entered Greg’s spine at the first lumbar vertebrae and, due to the heat and velocity of the point-blank shooting, it had cauterized going in; it was basically welded in the bone. His spinal cord was severed. Bullet fragments were actively floating in the spinal fluid. Greg was paralyzed from the waist down.
The doctor paused as I slid off the little sofa and onto the floor, quietly sobbing, tears streaming down my face. Jacob’s hands covered his face; his chest was heaving with sorrow and anger. The detective took notes, quickly but quietly. The scratch of his pencil to the pad was the only sound in the room.
“If the bullet,” the doctor continued gently, “Had been a half-inch off in any direction, he would have been killed. There would have been too much internal damage.”
Jesus. I knew in that moment, that those two guys may have pulled the trigger, but it was Jesus who had placed the bullet precisely where it would not kill him. He was severely injured–but he was not dead.
“Can you do surgery on him?” I asked.
“I don’t think surgery is planned,” the doctor said gently. “But that is up to the neurosurgeon who will be looking at him.”
“Can I see him?”
“He’s being moved in a few minutes to the trauma intensive care unit upstairs. I’ll let you know when he’s there.” The doctor looked at the detective, then at Jacob. “I’m very sorry.” He walked out.
The detective said that he had a few more questions, but they could wait. “I’ll give you a little while,” he said. “Please let me know if you need anything.” He left the room.
Jacob went in the hallway to make phone calls. As he walked out, family friends, one of Greg’s co-workers, and church members began to join us. I updated them until the doctor said we were allowed upstairs. We waited while the detective was visiting Greg, praying and gathering up strength in Christ. As soon as allowed, I went back to the TICU to see him.
I heard his screams down the hall and entered the room weeping, scared at what I was going to find. His eyes were wide, like a wounded animal, his head moving from side to side. “Oh dear God!” he yelled out, tears actively flowing down his cheeks as a nurse worked on getting a second IV line in. His nose and between his eyebrows were cut; his face was stained with blood.
“Oh, it burns, it burns!” he screamed. Nurses and doctors were buzzing about the room. “Oh Jesus,” he cried out, tears streaming down his pain-stricken face. He then did the remarkable: raising one paper-bagged hand, all the way up, he screamed out, “Praise you! Praise you in this storm! You are God, You are Savior, praise You, praise You in this storm!”
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Hemmed in Behind and Before
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Deuteronomy 31:8
I have dealt with special needs during all my years as a mother: in public, trying desperately to get my disabled son services and encouraging other parents dealing with the lonely world of autism; in private, barely keeping it together as the tantrums grew in proportion to his body. I’ve asked God “Why?” so many times in Sam’s 23 years. “What good can autism have?”
Sam’s autism made it extremely difficult to teach him about God. Santa Claus, you can see, touch, hear, talk with one-on-one at the mall. God can’t be seen. You can’t touch Him. Hearing His voice is sometimes really hard—especially when the noise of life interrupts. Helping Sam understand about God started out with us praying for people in ambulances as they sped past us, sirens blaring. Teaching Sam in concrete ways about God built his own faith and solidified mine. Still, in desperately terrible moments, Sam will still ask God, “Why can’t I be normal like other people?”
Why questions have a tendency to pull us down in the muck and mire where we are trapped by comparing ourselves to other people’s mud holes in which they are trapped. Why questions expose discontentment in some form: Why can’t we have a bigger house–we have six people living in this one! I need a dog! Oh.My.Word! Shiplap!
It took the events of November 28, 2015 and afterwards to make me realize that contentment is rooted in Christ alone. I learned that contentment breeds surrender, and surrender leads to submission.
Whoa. Dirty word, that. Submission. It conjures up images of slaves and bowing down to masters. Yes. Exactly. When we learn that Christ is our Master, and we are as slaves to Him, not out of fear or force but out of love and gratitude–it changes our whole mindset about submitting to Him, for the sake of our walk with Him and the witness we have of Him to others. Our walk takes on a kingdom-focus, Christ-centered point of view. In the middle of tragedies, though, it is hard to think about such things.
On the morning of November 28, 2015, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, my husband Greg, son Jacob, daughter Laura, and I were wrapping up our holiday project at his parents’ home in Lynchburg, Virginia. It seems like every trip to their house has a project invested in it, and that’s okay. We enjoy helping them; they help us when they visit. This time, we had worked with his parents and brother to clean, declutter, and reorganize the basement to make more livable space for them. As we sorted boxes and reminisced about things we found, five hours away in Charlotte, North Carolina, a black car pulled up at a 23-year-old woman’s house. Keyona looked outside and saw that her boyfriend’s friend Terrell and his wife were sitting in the driveway, waiting on her boyfriend Darren to finish his cigarette while he sat on Keyona’s front porch. He finished and power-walked to the car.
While his wife was driving, Terrell told Darren of the plan: drive up to Hillsborough and meet a man to get money, go back and hang out with Terrell’s cousin in Greensboro, then come back to Charlotte. Both Terrell and Darren were convicted felons; Darren, who hadn’t hit the six-week post-release mark from prison yet, was carrying a silver .360 revolver in his pocket. He sat in the car during the four-hour drive to Hillsborough, texting Keyona the whole time. The plan was a drug deal.
About four in the afternoon, we waved goodbye to Greg’s family, and started our long five-hour drive back home to Gastonia on the southwest side of Charlotte. Driving through Greensboro two hours into the trip, we chatted with Jacob about being on Western Carolina University’s marching band that semester. As a freshman music major, he was excited and thrilled about marching with his tenor sax.
Laura talked non-stop to herself. At five years old, she was listening to her Bubby’s excited jabber but was more interested in what she, herself, had to say. So she looked outside despite dusk settling in, and talked to the window.
The talk after dinner focused on catching Jacob up on how our oldest son, Sam, was doing in the group home for people with developmental delays, and how Elli, Greg’s daughter, was doing in her last year of high school in Pennsylvania.
At 7:30 in the evening, a man walked into the rest stop in Cabarrus County on I-85 Southbound. Traffic was light and the other guests were leaving in their cars. The custodian, who was preparing his cleaning cart for his last rounds, saw the man come in, spit into the water fountain, and go to the restroom. Disgusted, the custodian took out a spray bottle of bleach water and wiped out the water fountains. As he rinsed the bowl with water, he used the bleach water rag to wipe and polish the whole fountain, scrubbing off all the fingerprints that had dulled the shiny chrome.
The man walked out of the restroom and left the facility, getting into his vehicle. The custodian watched him walk out; as the doors opened, he saw two new guests smoking outside in the chilly November air, beside the automatic doors. The bigger of the two men had dreadlocks and was wearing a baggy white shirt and jean shorts. The shorter had dreads down to his waist, pulled back under a floppy hat. He was wearing a red and white shirt under a jacket. The custodian just figured, like most people traveling on I-85 Southbound, that they needed to stretch their legs. Still, those were some long dreads…
Traveling down I-85 Southbound, we talked about the special church service planned for the next morning. Our church had planned a Concert of Prayer for the two services that Sunday, with the first service starting at 8:30 a.m. and again at 11. We were excited about participating in a service dedicated just to prayer. In this tender moment, I shared with Greg something the Lord had laid on my heart: that He was about to bless us. Greg agreed; he had experienced that encouragement as well.
Continuing down the interstate, we laughed over fun family memories, like going to theme parks. Laura stopped talking; her interest was piqued: she asked questions about princesses and castles and we all answered them, smiling and laughing as we shared stories.
Traffic was amazingly light that evening so we made good time heading home from spending the holiday in Virginia. The sweet tea from dinner sneaked up on us and we soon needed a restroom break. Driving down I-85, we were in Concord, and Greg turned off the interstate into a rest area parking lot.
It would be the last time he drove the SUV.
There were two buildings at this particular rest area: one for the restrooms, and the other for vending machines. Jacob went ahead into the restroom building and I followed, with Greg and Laura bringing up the rear, holding hands and chatting. I noticed a man walking from the vending building; he had an incredibly distinctive walk–a powerful swagger as though he owned the place. As a writer who notices such things, I took note of it. I looked ahead and there was another man, shorter than the first, with moles all over his face and a floppy hat on his head, with long dreadlocks pulled back. As it was getting chilly in the twilight hours, I didn’t think much more about it, and went to the ladies’ room.
Greg waited in the lobby with Laura; I came out and took her into the ladies’ room. After she finished and washed her hands, we joined Jacob in the lobby. Greg was in the men’s room. I decided to let Laura run around outside, so the three of us walked through the door and past those two guys.
The brick patio right outside of the door was in a courtyard of sorts, with concrete squares surrounded by red bricks that formed diamond shaped-paths. Jacob chased Laura, saying, “I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you!” She giggled as she skipped along the paths.
I smiled while watching Jacob and Laura play. Having a funny feeling, I looked up. The two guys were watching us intently. They watched my daughter skip on the brick paths. Their eyes followed Jacob as though they were sizing him up. I didn’t like the feeling I had, and called Laura back to me as she was skipping too far to my right.
The guys looked at me then at the door. Again, they looked at me and my children. After a head nod to each other, they turned with deliberation and walked inside the building. I sighed and rested a little easier: at least they weren’t watching my kids.
Just a few moments later, a single, deafening shot pierced the solitude. Time moved so fast and so slowly at the same time. We started walking quickly toward the restroom building as the two guys sprinted out the door and past us. It did not process at that second what was going on.
“Help me!” I heard my beloved scream through the open door. “Help me!”
The three of us ran inside. Greg was on his belly in the men’s room doorway floor, blood gushing from his nose. A pool of blood was under his face. “I’ve been shot!” he screamed.
There are moments in your life in which you don’t even recognize your own voice. A primal, guttural scream launched from the depths of my soul: “No!” In the same moment, I looked at Jacob. We had understood, at the same exact time, what had happened: Those two guys, who had watched us outside, had shot Greg.
Jacob turned on a dime and bounded outside. Screaming at the guys who we could not see, he tried to bolt after them. I was right behind him, hearing Greg screaming, “No, Jacob! They will kill you!” Somehow, I grabbed Jacob’s muscular body and threw him back towards the doors.
“Call 911!” I screamed at Jacob as I ran to the custodian’s office. I screamed at him, “Please! My husband’s been shot! Call 911!” I then realized he was, in fact, on the phone with the emergency dispatcher.
Greg was on his belly, blood still coming from his nose and pooling on the floor under his face. “Get my wallet,” he said, reaching under himself and pulling the car keys from his jeans pocket; they slid across the floor.
I took his wallet from his back pocket and picked the keys off the floor. It then dawned on both of us: they didn’t take anything. Greg had come out of the stall and was washing his hands at the sink. The two guys came in and stood on either side of him as he stood, washing his hands at the basin. By their actions, the men were herding him toward the sink and away from the doorway. The tall one with the powerful stride pulled a gun and pointed it at Greg’s head. No words had been said. Fight-or-flight took over: Greg turned and bolted for the door; three zig-zagging steps, then: bang! He had immediately collapsed on the floor, all three-hundred pounds of him, face first–too fast to even bring his arms up to catch himself. He hit so hard the floor tiles cut into the bridge of his nose and between his eyebrows. While a little blood was on the back of his shirt surrounding the hole, all the blood that had pooled under him came from those tile imprints.
He had been shot in the back from three feet away.
It was a kill shot.
Laura was sitting on the floor, holding her legs with her arms and rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face. Over and over she began to cry out: “My Daddy’s dead, my Daddy’s dead!”
“I’m not dead, Princess!” Greg yelled out, desperately trying to reach her through words when he could not physically get to her. “Daddy’s not dead! I’m right here!”
I picked her up and she held me tight, crying. Greg called to me, steadying himself: “Terrie, I cannot feel my legs.”
“Noooo!” screaming, crying, holding Laura, I cried out, “Jesus, have mercy!”
At that moment, a man came in the rest area lobby and saw the situation. “What happened?” he exclaimed. “Are you okay? What can I do to help?” We heard sirens through the closed door, coming from the interstate.
“Hold her!” I handed this total stranger my daughter, who hugged him. Laura was not one to go with strangers, but she willingly reached for this man. He walked the floor with her, asked her name, and rocked her as she sobbed on his shoulder. It was a strangely peaceful scene in the midst of the chaos.
Jacob, finished with the phone call, knelt down beside Greg. “What can I do?” he asked, kicking his lifeguard first-aid training into gear. Greg asked about the entrance wound. Jacob accessed the situation: there was a hole in the back of his shirt, a little blood around the hole in the shirt, but no exit wound.
Any other time, if Greg would get cut and see his own blood, he would pass out within three and a half minutes. This time–Jesus. Greg did not pass out at all, though he was staring at a growing pool of blood. He had the presence of mind, while I was on the phone with his mother and losing what sanity I had, to access himself: airway, check. Breathing, yes. Cardio: pulse is there.
Laying on the floor, Greg prayed, “Lord, just let me take care of my family.” The presence and peace of Christ was immediately upon him, as though Jesus hunkered down on the floor right next to him. I gave you a desk job two years ago for this purpose. You have breath in your body.
Greg looked at his arms, outstretched, and the puddle of blood under his face. My body was broken, My blood was shed…Greg heard Christ’s gentle voice. In that moment, he understood: “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed,” [Isaiah 53:5 NIV].
A lone tear fell as Greg silently thanked Jesus.
Two state troopers ran in the building, and while one knelt beside Greg, the other kept everyone inside and secured the building. He started asking us all questions. The one kneeling took notes as Greg gave him detailed descriptions, which the trooper relayed to other officers via radio. We heard the whirling buzz of police helicopters above the building as paramedics came in with a gurney and started administering aid to Greg.
In a blur of activity and tears, Greg was loaded up on the gurney. Headed out the door, he turned to me: “Terrie, I love you. I’m okay. Be safe on the way to the hospital.”
I collapsed on the floor, ugly crying. Jacob picked me up and held me. Tears were actively flowing down my boy’s cheeks. The man holding Laura stroked the back of her head as she silently cried.
As we walked outside with the trooper that had been asking questions, we were flooded by the red lights of the ambulance intermingled with the lights from police cruisers flying up the rest area drive.
As the paramedics were trying to get an IV in Greg in the ambulance, I confirmed with the trooper that he was being transported to the main hospital in Charlotte. The trooper looked at me, my face streaked with tears, and looked at Jacob.
“Can you drive?” the trooper asked Jacob.
“Yes!” exclaimed Jacob with confidence. “How do you get to the hospital?”
The trooper didn’t try too hard to suppress a grin. He asked me the same question. “Yes,” I said. “I have to do something.” The trooper nodded; he understood. He walked over, hugged me, and said he was praying.
I reached out for Laura, who flung herself on me from the stranger. I thanked him profusely and asked his name. All I heard was “Elroy.”
The youth pastor of our church, Chris, met us in the emergency department waiting room about ten minutes after we arrived. His daughter was with him and took charge of Laura. We couldn’t see Greg as the ER team was working on him and accessing the damage. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was really only about thirty minutes, we were called to the private family room.
A detective greeted us and started asking questions. Jacob and I answered each one, giving descriptions of the two guys. Chris was in the room, praying and providing emotional support. The door opened and a triage doctor walked in and sat down.
He explained that the .380 caliber bullet entered Greg’s spine at the first lumbar vertebrae and, due to the heat and velocity of the point-blank shooting, it had cauterized going in; it was basically welded in the bone. His spinal cord was severed. Bullet fragments were actively floating in the spinal fluid. Greg was paralyzed from the waist down.
The doctor paused as I slid off the little sofa and onto the floor, quietly sobbing, tears streaming down my face. Jacob’s hands covered his face; his chest was heaving with sorrow and anger. The detective took notes, quickly but quietly. The scratch of his pencil to the pad was the only sound in the room.
“If the bullet,” the doctor continued gently, “Had been a half-inch off in any direction, he would have been killed. There would have been too much internal damage.”
Jesus. I knew in that moment, that those two guys may have pulled the trigger, but it was Jesus who had placed the bullet precisely where it would not kill him. He was severely injured–but he was not dead.
“Can you do surgery on him?” I asked.
“I don’t think surgery is planned,” the doctor said gently. “But that is up to the neurosurgeon who will be looking at him.”
“Can I see him?”
“He’s being moved in a few minutes to the trauma intensive care unit upstairs. I’ll let you know when he’s there.” The doctor looked at the detective, then at Jacob. “I’m very sorry.” He walked out.
The detective said that he had a few more questions, but they could wait. “I’ll give you a little while,” he said. “Please let me know if you need anything.” He left the room.
Jacob went in the hallway to make phone calls. As he walked out, family friends, one of Greg’s co-workers, and church members began to join us. I updated them until the doctor said we were allowed upstairs. We waited while the detective was visiting Greg, praying and gathering up strength in Christ. As soon as allowed, I went back to the TICU to see him.
I heard his screams down the hall and entered the room weeping, scared at what I was going to find. His eyes were wide, like a wounded animal, his head moving from side to side. “Oh dear God!” he yelled out, tears actively flowing down his cheeks as a nurse worked on getting a second IV line in. His nose and between his eyebrows were cut; his face was stained with blood.
“Oh, it burns, it burns!” he screamed. Nurses and doctors were buzzing about the room. “Oh Jesus,” he cried out, tears streaming down his pain-stricken face. He then did the remarkable: raising one paper-bagged hand, all the way up, he screamed out, “Praise you! Praise you in this storm! You are God, You are Savior, praise You, praise You in this storm!”
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