Bill Lee - This Road Im On: The Power of Hope in the Face of Adversity

T HIS R OAD I M O N

T HIS R OAD I M O N

The Power of Hope in the Face of Adversity

Bill Lee

with David Lambert

2018 Bill Lee

This Road Im On

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

The Author is represented by Ambassador Literary, Nashville, Tennessee.

Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail .

Unless otherwise identified, all Scripture quotations in this publication are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936845

ISBN 978-1-595545480 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-595543547 (Hardbound)

ISBN 978-1-595543059 (eBook)

This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife Maria, who has been a constant source of love, devotion, and encouragement. She is Gods gift to me, and I wouldnt want to travel down this road with anyone else.

As for me, I will always have hope;

I will praise you more and more.

Though you have made me see troubles,

many and bitter,

you will restore my life again.

P SALM 71:14,20 A NIV

C ONTENTS

W e all know or know of people whose lives have influenced our own in outsized ways. People whose influence has been so great that we cant imagineand dont want to imaginehow our lives might look if we hadnt known them. Decades ago at Belmont Church in Nashville, I met two of those people: Bill and Carol Ann Lee. They were about the same age as my wife Debbie and me, came from the South like us, and were equally passionate followers of Jesus.

As we continued to cross paths at church, the four of us grew ever closer. Eventually, Carol Ann and Debbie concluded that with busy husbands and babies coming fast, they wanted a group of like-minded women who would meet weekly for prayer. They invited some women to join them, and so the Prayer Group was born and, through the faithfulness of God, continues to this day. Not surprisingly, the women frequently pulled their men in for prayer, worship, and socializing. Some of our best and truest friends are in that group. Among them is Bill Lee, who is indeed a friend who sticks closer than a brother to me. Our hearts are knit tightly.

Our group prayed together through many of the joys and sorrows common to young families, but nothing prepared us for what happened on July 22, 2000. We were stunned when the news rushed through our hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, of Carol Anns horseback riding accident. I offered Bill what support I could and so was able to observe firsthand as he summoned the courage and faith necessary to not only deal in his own heart with this blow, but also to shepherd his four kids through an experience no kids should ever have to face. I already admired Bills strength and his simple commitment to doing the right thing. But after Carol Anns accident, I watched that strength and commitment tested beyond enduranceand yet he endured.

I dont need to tell you any more about Bills characteryoure about to read the book, and once you have, youll have joined the long list of people who see in Bills life an example of how life should be livedboth when setback after crisis after catastrophe strike, and also when life allows us the freedom to choose our own direction. When Bill is given that freedom, he looks for places to serve, places to make a positive difference. And he has proven time and again that he can do just that.

In This Road Im On, youll read about Bills childhood on the farm where he was raised and still lives todaycaring for cattle, picking blackberries, cutting hay, year after year. Youll read about the long list of family crises that struck his young family and watch in awe as he and his family navigate their way through crises that would have destroyed many families. Youll watch Bill lead his family-founded and family-owned company, Lee Company, through perilous times that nearly drove them under and then to their period of greatest success and prosperity. Youll rejoice with Bill as he courts and weds his second wife, Maria. And youll walk beside Bill as he invests himself and his resources in people and causes that make a difference: in the life of a young man from the inner city, in the life of a prison inmate being released back into society, and in the lives of the child mothers of northern Ugandagirls and young women abducted by the forces of Sudanese dictator Joseph Kony and handed over to his troops to use however they desired. All of us notice such needs as we walk through life and we often think, Someone should do something about that. Bill doesnt just talk about it: he does something.

Because this book fairly represents Bills life and heart, you will be helped, and you will be changed. I know, because his life has inspired, helped, and changed me.

May this book do the same for you.

Michael W. Smith

Nashville, Tennessee

From Bill:

I want to thank those who have made it possible for me to write this book.

To Maria, who has worked as hard as I have on the project and who has actually become the most important part of my story.

To my kids, Jessica, Jacob, Caleb, and Sarah Kate, for whom this story is the most painful of all. Their willingness to allow it to be told, for their lives to be exposed in the hope of helping others, has been an inspiring thing for their dad to observe.

To Wes Yoder, who inspired me originally to write a book, and Dave Lambert who worked tirelessly with me for months to be certain the story was told in my voice.

To Andrew Miller, my close friend who read and reread manuscripts and used his gifts to add greatly to the final outcome.

And finally I want to express gratitude to the true author of my story, the one who created me and walked alongside me through every word written in the book that is my life and who will never leave nor forsake me until I see him face to face.

From Dave:

Thanks to Cindy, my wife, for her patience and understanding as Ive put in the long hours and seven-day weeks that are often necessary to create a book like this. Fortunately Cindys a writer too, so she understands. Since Im writing this on Valentines Day, it seems entirely appropriate to say: I love you.

And thanks to my colleagues at our little publishing services bureau Somersault for loaning me to this project for several months. Ill make it up to you.

Thanks also to Bill Lee and Wes Yoder for being willing to include me in This Road Im On. Hard work, but Ive enjoyed every minute, and count myself the richer for it. As the books first reader, I can tell all who come to it after me: Bills story will tear you upand then put you back together better than before.

And to Sarah, my own Jessica. I love hard stories with happy endings.