Like many people, especially in the South, Tim and I (Sharon) were raised in church. We, like many others, if asked would have said we were Christians. Yet our lives reflected just the opposite. More often we thought about ourselves rather than others. We were busy trying to get ahead instead of trying to give a hand. We were not good stewards of, well anything! You get the picture. Yet according to the world’s standards we had a pretty good life. We lived in a very wonderful community, had a nice house, two good jobs and a fairly good marriage. Best of all we had two beautiful children. Our handsome son, Charlie, who was so kind and smart and loving, and our adorable little daughter, Raleigh, whose smile could brighten even the darkest days, and there were many to come.
When Raleigh was 18 months old she had a seizure following a fever after an injection. Then at 2 1/2 another fever, followed by another seizure but this time she stopped breathing. They flew her by helicopter to a hospital and we had to drive the longest hour of our life hoping our baby would be alive when we arrived. She was alive, barely, her tiny body in intensive care on the ventilator. The doctors told us that when she woke up she might be confused or slow to remember things. We are thankful that she woke up, but our first Raleigh was gone that day and a new one, that we loved just as much, woke up. She had new struggles now. She had to learn some things again. It was harder for her to learn now and she would have seizures with and without known reason from that day forward.
During the first few years of her struggles, my grandparents that we had gone to church with died and their church was far from us so we attempted to find a church closer to home. We had found a church and had faithfully attended for a few months even though we never really felt like we were welcome, especially Raleigh. They seemed afraid of her. (This sweet little girl whose smile still shined through the darkness.) Our fears were confirmed when she had a six hour (yes six hour!) seizure and they had to put her into a comma and put her on the ventilator and hope she would not be seizing when the drugs wore off. My aunt called the church and the pastor mailed us his card. It said call if you need us. No one came. No one called. We never called or went back. I was already angry with God anyway and now “His people” were also a disappointment.
Raleigh’s seizures continued regardless of the efforts made to control them. She was not a candidate for surgery. She went through many drug trials. Some would work for a short time but none for long.
Everything else became more of a struggle. Our financial situation was desperate. Our marriage was struggling. We were trying to care for a sick child and trying to be a good parent to our other child.
To make matters worse, we had a relentless neighbor, who we loved, that kept begging us to come to his church and invited our children to church things. After months of harassment we allowed Charlie to attend some event. He really liked it and became our neighbor’s partner in crime.
We saw so much growth and change in Charlie. Our neighbor was still hard at work trying to convince us to attend a service so we finally did. We had our guard up though, expecting no one to want Raleigh to be there. If Raleigh could not be there, then we were not going to stay either. As soon as church was over, we saw her coming, the teacher from the class that Raleigh had been in, making a bee line straight for us. We looked at each other. We knew it was coming. It was either, you will need to stay with her or you can’t leave her…. Surprisingly that’s not what we got. We got something like, we love your daughter, so glad you’re here, please tell us anything we need to know to make her time here more enjoyable and we really hope you come back. The greatest thing was that she meant it. Others like her had spoken to us that day and I mean really spoken to us.
Over the next few months God used Raleigh to allow us to see both the good and bad in the hearts of people. Most importantly, He had allowed us to see our own hearts. We now earnestly desired to have what the people who so easily loved and accepted Raleigh had. That was a heart like His. They had a real relationship with Christ, one that allowed them to know and reflect Him. We longed for that so we prayed and prayed and God restored our lives. Every aspect of our lives began to fall into place, although Raleigh’s seizures continued.
Charlie had accepted Christ and was going to be baptized. Tim and I decided to be baptized with him. We had both been baptized as teenagers but felt like we had done it more out of tradition or expectation. We wanted to do it now out of love for our Savior. We were all baptized together and our lives were better than ever even though Raleigh’s struggles continued.
From age 9 to now 11 years and 8 months old she would have up to 100 seizures a day, but some days without. But at this time there seemed to be constant activity. Her seizures were so frequent and intense that walking became a struggle. One Wednesday night I had an uneasy feeling about her so I left church and went to the porch outside the building that she was in and watched her through the window and cried. Sunday came and she sat beside me in the aisle in her wheelchair. Her hands were twitching and one of the sweetest ladies in the world was in the pew across from us and reached over and held her other hand. She was always the “face of Christ” that our pastor encouraged us to be.
The following Monday night a tormenting cry came from my daughter’s room as Tim went in to check on her. I ran in but she was gone. It was the most terrifying moment of a parent’s life. We called 911. I put her on the floor and, for what seemed like an hour, I tried to revive the cold lifeless body of my precious little girl.
Now I know pain. Now I see clearly. I have understood in depth the love of Christ, the part of the Trinity that took my place, that paid my debt. But not until this moment was I able to understand the Father’s love for us.
I had watched my daughter suffer for years and I would never ever have chosen for her to suffer. The Father chose for His Son to suffer for us. I cried, screamed, and begged for her to not be dead. I offered my life in place of hers. I would never have chosen her death. Yet God chose to allow His son to suffer and die for us. I believe now as a parent who watched their child suffer and die that I can understand some of the Father’s anguish and yet I would never have chosen it. I could never have loved others as much as He loves us. But He could see that in the death of His son there would be life for many. In that moment I could see only pain in the death of Raleigh.
But God used the death of Raleigh to accomplish something that we had never dreamed about. Out of the pain, suffering, and death of Raleigh, Raleigh’s Place was born.
— Sharon King, Executive Director