‘You don’t ever get over those things. You just learn how to get through them,’ says a minister familiar with tragedy.
First Place, News Story, Associated Church Press
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
The gunman took the love of Mavy Stoddard’s life.
She refused to let him take her hope.
“God’s been good to me,” said Stoddard, whose husband, Dorwan, 76, died when a would-be assassin opened fire on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket on Jan. 8, 2011. “My faith got me through all this without falling apart.”
But even now — nearly seven years after the Arizona attack in which six were killed and 13 others injured — Mavy Stoddard breaks down sometimes.
“Just this last Sunday, I spent 15 minutes crying and feeling sorry for myself,” said Stoddard, 82, who lived despite suffering three bullet wounds. “But 15 minutes is all I will allow myself anymore.”
For survivors of the recent mass shooting at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tenn., healing will take time and patience, said Stoddard and other Christians who have experienced past tragedies.
“I would tell them they need to load up on patience and mercy and grace,” said Les Ferguson Jr., a minister whose wife, Karen, 44, and son Cole, 21, were shot to deathin the family’s Gulfport, Miss., home on Oct. 11, 2011.
Melanie Crow, 38, was killed and seven other Burnette Chapel members wounded — including minister Joey Spann — when a masked gunman targeted the congregation Sept. 24.
To members’ shock, the man arrested by police — 25-year-old Emanuel K. Samson — was someone they knew.
This story appears in the November 2017 edition of The Christian Chronicle.
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