Charles Morris - Saving a Life: How We Found Courage When Death Rescued Our Son

What people are saying about

Saving a Life

There may be no greater loss than the loss of a child. Charles and Janet Morris courageously share the story of their loss, but also the hope they found along the way. If you have lost a child or know someone who has, this is a must read book.

Dennis Rainey, president of Familylife

Saving a Life is a gritty memoir about the ugliness of a childs drug addiction and the terrible beauty that comes from trusting in God, even through a parents worst nightmare. This book certainly has the potential to be a great comfort to people in the face of horrendous pain. It hits just the right balance of tonehonesty, pain, and hope, all mixed together to create a testimony of Gods redemptive work.

Gary Thomas, author of The Beautiful Fight
and Sacred Marriage

Saving a Life has a raw, unvarnished honesty that is compelling. Just as compelling is the message of gracegrace that empowers and enables parents to hold on to God and know that He is enough. This book will enrich your love for your children and deepen your love for God and your confidence in His goodness. You will want to share this book with others.

Tedd Tripp, pastor, author, speaker

This is a parenting story unlike any other Ive ever read. Read until you can read no more. Dont require your heart to finish the book quickly, but promise yourself you will finish. Read and know that your suffering and the Morrises suffering is not in vain. Redemption reigns.

Dan B. Allender, PhD,
president, Mars Hill Graduate School

This story of profound courage does have something we can take away. Charles and Janet set heart to heart by taking us deeper into the fellowship of sharing in Christs sufferings. And there, in the secret inner sanctum of that fellowship, they help us glimpse the source of all couragethe painfully beautiful, raw, and tender reality of our suffering Savior. He bore our hell so that one day we might have heaven. This book helped me see Jesus in that light. And thats what gives courage.

Joni Eareckson Tada ,
best-selling author, speaker

SAVING A LIFE
Published by David C. Cook
4050 Lee Vance View
Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C. Cook Distribution Canada
55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5
David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo
are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,
no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form
without written permission from the publisher.

LCCN 2007939846
ISBN 978-1-4347-9991-3
eISBN 978-1-4347-6650-2

2008 Charles Morris and Janet Morris

The Team: John Blase, Jaci Schneider, Susan Vannaman
Cover/Interior Design: The DesignWorks Group

Cover Images: PhotoDisc, iStock

First Edition 2008

I said to myself, Lo, I lie in a dream
Of separation, where there comes no sign;
My waking life is hid with Christ in God,
Where all is true and potentfact divine.
I will not heed the thing that doth but seem;
I will be quiet as lark upon the sod;
Gods will, the seed, shall rest in me the pod.

George MacDonald, The Diary of an Old Soul

Contents

Finding Courage
when the blow falls

Finding Courage
in a sign

Finding Courage
in a childrens tale

Finding Courage
in the fellowship

Finding Courage
in deaths presence

Finding Courage
in a friend

Finding Courage
in a hotel room

Finding Courage
down south

Finding Courage
to go ON

Foreword

My son and I are in a period o f acknowledged estrangement. He is nineteen and living away from home. The conversations we have had so far are painful. He has been honest about my failures and I have had to face the effect of my life on him in new ways. At moments I have wanted desperately to defend my decisions, justify my failures as less severe than he perceives, and when explanation is not enough, I want to quit. The urge to quitto throw my hands in the air and say, Fine, you want to go your waydo it on your own pennyis greater at moments than my faith and patience. I havent quit; I havent justified my failures (too often). And my son has spoken more clearly and passionately to me than he has in years. We are both hopeful, yet the process of growth together in Christ stretches out over many mountain passes, and the inn where I so desperately desire to lay my head is not yet in sight.

It is in that season that I read this demanding book. Some days I could not pick up the pages of the manuscript. The pain of the Morrises was too raw and it seemed to send a surge of agony through my body like sciatica. In those times I could not read, but I also could not forget. I found myself saying, How could you let such good and loving parents suffer such loss? I ached for them, but in fact, I was at war with myself, and even more, I was in a pitched battle with God.

The central question I struggled to answer was this: Could I love and serve a God who allowed my son to die? Could I trust and surrender to a God who might allow my son to turn from me and from Him? The pain of a heartbroken parent is a wail that is deeper than any I have heard on this earth. What would I do with my own heartache? What would I do with the heartache that I had not yet suffered, but as any parent, I know I might?

I finished the book. I can tell you I am immensely heartened for the hard journey. I promise there are no easy answers in this glorious labor of love. The Morrises do not trivialize their sons death, or the death and resurrection of Jesus, by offering clichd hope. What they offer, and far more live, with integrity is the promise that those who mourn will be comforted. How? When? I dont know. I simply believe and can say: I, too, have known the kindness of God in the midst of my turning to him and away from the natural call to fury or indifference.

This is a parenting story unlike any other Ive ever read. It is raw, real, and alive with the promise that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Every parent fails. Christian parents seem to fail in even greater ways given our desire to offer a profound picture of the love of God for our children. If we do not enter His deep, abiding passion of delight for us as parents, we can never offer the hope of forgiveness for our children. For many of us it means surrendering our fears, demands, and self-righteousness. For others it may involve surrendering our self-reproach and regret. What does it mean for us to throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus and then to rise dancing before those who see us as foolish and broken? This book will take you by the hand and lead you through death without letting you forget the rising hope of redemption. The Morrises will allow you to see how wailing can lead to laughter and how despair can be transformed into hope.

One last bit of counselread until you can read no more. Dont require your heart to finish the book quickly, but promise yourself you will finish. Read and know that your suffering and the Morrises suffering is not in vain. Redemption reigns.

Dan B. Allender, PhD

president of Mars Hill Graduate School

author of To Be Told and Leading with a Limp

August 5, 2003

Friends,