I am a selfish person. I was given a book by a dear friend, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn is said to be a great book that will create in us a total confidence about the prospect of spending eternity with God in Heaven. I am thankful for friends who refer solid, Bible-based, books and I am thankful for this book.

In spite of much encouragement, I have been hesitant to read this book. In talking with my friend, Lisa, last night, I realized that I am selfish; I don’t see how I will find comfort dealing with the loss of my son by learning how wonderful his life is not. How will that relieve my sadness, pain, and loneliness? How will that restore to me the hope of a future, watching him mature and be used by God? How will that give me a family who will care with and for me as I grow old? How will knowing he is having a great time, help me?

From the very beginning, I have been certain that Christopher was the winner in all this ~ his is the only one who doesn’t have to live with pain any more.

Right after the accident, I had a terrible thought; I wondered if I was still a mom. I shared this concern with a pastor-friend of mine. This was his response (via e-mail)

I loved this response by a fellow pastor on a forum I asked for prayer for you – Today I told them of your question of whether or not you are still a Mom, articulating to them the things people experience that we would never think of if not having grieved as they do.

“Damn straight she can. She is-right now a mom because her son still is.
Thank God for the Gospel.”

Thank God for friends who will remind me of the truth of the Gospel.

On the Sunday after the accident, a reported from the Tallahassee Democrat called to ask if she could “cover” Christopher’s memorial service. I asked her what the purpose would be; if it was to make an example of these boys, then no. If it is about the reality that bad things happen to good kids, then it would be okay. She felt confident that it would not be at all negative. She promised to call me if this was not the case. (You can click on the image of the article to read it.)

In the midst of this pain, I have been faced with some conflicting realities. The primary source of the conflict is the reality that God is Sovereign and He is Good. That doesn’t not naturally reconcile to the reality I have known for the past six weeks. The challenge is to find a way to fit all this together with the character of God – that is the absolute truth, the rest is just circumstance. . .

In the midst of this, I have determined that it is a choice to be thankful and, in spite of the pain, there is much for which to be thankful:

• I am so thankful that Christopher was not driving the night of the accident. Given his driving history, had he been driving, I am certain to have been angry with him and struggled with guilt that I had continued to allow him to drive.
• I am so thankful that I was able to see Christopher alive after the accident. He was not conscious, but was very peaceful. Given the magnitude of the accident, I am certain to have imagined much more “ugly” injuries. We had such hope at that point; the scan didn’t reveal any damage to his brain and he was moving his arms and legs.
• If this was God’s appointed time to call Christopher home, I am so thankful that Christopher never regained consciousness. I would not have wanted him to be scared.
• I am so thankful that God spared Christopher from living a painful life. I think that if Christopher had been debilitated as a result of the accident, he would have really struggled; I believe he would have been a very angry young man.
• I hadn’t done any Christmas shopping. That was really unusual for me, but I am so thankful that I didn’t have to deal with returns, given the circumstances.
• I am so thankful for an arguement that Christopher and I had just two weeks earlier. There are two things that I said during this “discussion” that I need to cling to now. It is a gift to have verbalized these things before his death so that I know that I believed them and am not just trying to convince myself now that these things are true. The first one is the reality that it is not hypocritical to choose to focus on the positive rather than on the negative. Secondly, is that I had the chance to tell him that I knew that, although I wasn’t perfect, that I could honestly say that nobody tried harder to be a good parent; I had no regrets.

I adopted Christopher through The Florida Baptist Children’s Home here in Tallahassee. As it turns out, they have a need for a new playground. Anybody wishing to, can honor Christopher’s life by contributing to this playground. Upon completion, it will be dedicated to Christopher’s memory. If you are interested in contributing, tax deductible contributions can be made to:

When I created and named this Blog, I had no idea what the title would come to mean to me.

On December 7, I received the call that every parent dreads; there had been a serious car accident and my son, Christopher, was at Tallahassee Memorial. I quickly dressed and left for the hospital. On the way, a weird though occurred to me – how mad I was going to be if this was a prank of Christopher and his friends. No such luck.

This was not the typical phone call as I had gone to bed to take a nap. Christopher and I had talked around 6:20 – he was at John’s and expected to be home within an hour or so. I woke up at 7:10 and rolled over to got back to sleep some more; I had been up late the previous night writing a paper for a class I was taking. At 8:15 when I woke up, I heard what sounded like a ball being thrown against a wall which would not have surprised me with a group of boys coming over. Rather than walking downstairs, I called Christopher’s cell phone, just to check in. He didn’t answer. Within a few minutes, the home phone rang – caller ID showed Christopher’s cell phone number. It was the hospital; “Is this the family of Chris Hefren? . . .”

I arrived at the hospital and was put into a “family room”. There I sat, by myself. As I recall, the first people to come in were from the Leon County Sheriff’s Department. I was told that Christopher had been life-flighted to the hospital and came in as critical as he could have and still be alive. They left me, by myself again.

Next came in a Chaplin; a very nice man, but not really in touch with what I was dealing with. He did pray with/for me which was very helpful. I am not sure that I was thinking of God at this point. Where was He, anyways?

Eventually, the medical folks came in and told me that Christoper had a lot of internal injuries. Their goal was to stabilize him and move him to Intensive Care. Not a very optimistic goal, in my mind.

Somewhere along the line, I called my mom and a friend, Connie. Connie picked up my mom and the two of them came to be with me. Shortly after their arrival, I was able to see Christopher. He didn’t look that bad to me, except that there was a lot of blood on the floor. They explained that the CT scan had revealed that his right lung was full of blood and that was their immediate concern. He was on a ventilator had had all sorts of tubes coming in and going out of his mouth. They had him sedated (although I believe that he was unconscious), but that wasn’t working so well because his blood pressure kept dropping. I went up close to him and talked to him. I have to believe that he knew I was there. I held his had for a moment. I had not before realized how big he had gotten; 17 year old sons are not inclined to let their mom hold their hand.

At that point, they knew that they weren’t going to be able to avoid surgery. They put a form in front of me to sign, but made it clear that had I not been there, they would be doing the surgery anyways. I left Christopher; he was squirming around. They assured me that this was a natural response to the discomfort caused by all the tubs. I would not see him alive again.

After what seemed to be an eternity, but actually between 11:30 and 12:00 that night, the doctor emerged. She was so kind. The extent of injuries in his abdomen was not as great as originally thought. They removed his spleen and part of his colon; his liver wasn’t damaged as thought. But the bleeding wouldn’t stop; a thoracic surgeon and begun to work. I shouldn’t expect to hear anything for at least a couple of hours. If it would be more than two, she would ask someone to come out to update me.

I told those around me that I wasn’t at all encouraged by that update. Others tried to tell me all the positives. I was right.

Within an hour, three doctor-looking people emerged. Just like in the movies, their first words were, “we’re sorry”. They took the time to try to explain that Christopher literally had a hole in his heart that when they got in there, just let loose. There was no time to get him on a heart-lung machine. They did everything they could. I don’t doubt that, but it wasn’t enough.