Ryan's Hope meets @ 162 Glen view Rd just behind Crab Orchard Baptist Church on Robert C Byrd, .Crab Orchard,WV Thursdays 6:00pm
1st Corinthians 3:13 reads:
These three remain: Faith Hope and Love: but the greatest of these is love. God has allowed me to be his agent of hope and encouragement to people who have lost a lo
ved one through death. My husband, John and I were very active in our church, Daytona Baptist in sunny Florida. Our daughter, Samantha, attended Christian school. John worked in new construction. I had a home-based business and led other women to have home-based employment as well as selling candles... Like a candle blown out, 2 days before Easter in 2006, our world turned to darkness. Out 26-year-old son Ryan died from a prescription drug overdose. By Christmas we had gained custody of Ryan's twin toddlers, our grandchildren, Ian and Hallie. I started to feel overwhelmed with grief and the responsibility of raising small children again. I stopped going to church and so did my family. I was angry with God and wanted answer to my question...why? John's work slowed down, and we decided to leave our home and move to West Virginia. We had adopted the twins, and our daughter just graduated from high school. We thought a new start was the answer. John's adult children lived here, John grew up here, and our grandchildren were here as well. We settled into a different lifestyle. Then, on a beautiful fall day I was rushed by ambulance to Charleston. I had a brain aneurysm and had emergency brain surgery. When I woke up in a room, a beautiful older woman said to me, "are you ok , sugar?" She had a smile I will never forget. As tears ran down my face I told her I dreamt of my son and that he had died, and He was in Heaven telling Jesus to let me go back. I was lucky to be alive. She smiled again and told me her 30- year old son was with Jesus too. I asked her, "how can you smile and seem to have joy?" She simply replied, "I stopped asking God WHY!." I cried out to the Lord that night after my family went home. I asked God to forgive me for my anger and thanked him for giving me a second chance. One day when I meet my boy in Heaven , God will give me wisdom to understand the "why's". His ways are not our ways. I couldn't serve a loving God when I was full of rage. While recovering, I began to scribble Ryan's name and the word "Hope". God gave me a heavy heart for others who suffered a loss. We began sometime later attending Crab Orchard Baptist Church and from the 1st service we attended we knew we belonged. In Sunday school class one morning, I felt the tug God put there 2 years earlier. One of the questions in the study we were on was, "is there something God has wanted you to do and you haven't stepped out to do it?" John elbowed me and I already knew it was time. I shared my story. It still took another year for me to approach the Pastor about it. When I did Pastor Mike said, "Scott Dameron told me you were going to follow God's lead one day, and we have prayed about it." Along with our Pastor and Scott's help, much prayer, and my husbands faith and confidence in me, God's new ministry, Ryan's Hope, was born in July 2012. His grace is sufficient...
