Ken Parfitt and Family
Today’s post has little to do with Southern Heritage, but it is truly a story that must be told. This is about the death of a man who belonged to a church (Old Paths Bible Baptist in Clarendon, NY) that our church is closely tied to. His preacher has preached at our church – and our preacher has preached at his. There is a long-standing close fellowship among us. I did not know Ken Parfitt, but he was my brother in Christ.
On Tuesday (12/14/2010) as he lay alongside the road with his life slipping away, his wife knelt and prayed. “She asked that this event would be turned to the glory of God, that somehow it could touch the heart of someone, that someone might find Jesus, that someone might come to salvation.” This post is an effort to help that happen by spreading his story.
The following is from the blog of Bob Lonsberry – a radio talk show host who was one of the first on the accident scene. Please take the time to read his entire post. It is an inspiring and compelling story of a Christian family that faced a trial and burden that few of us could ever bear – and did it praising God. It is a story that will reduce the strongest man to tears, cause him to reflect on his blessings, and instill a greater urgency to lead others to Salvation through Jesus Christ.
As I ran up to him, the first thing I noticed was the Bible.
It was small, a pocket-sized book, in black leather.
It had apparently been knocked out of his clothing when the car hit him, and had landed beside him in the snow, down off the shoulder of the road.
That was yesterday, a few minutes after 7 in the morning.
It was frigid and there was accumulation and black ice and two cars had slid off the busy Interstate. He had stopped and gotten out to help.
He had been on the way to work, with his son, and he saw the motorists who needed help and he stopped. Countless others of us drove on by. But he stopped.
And got out in the blizzard and was going to render aid when out of nowhere came a vehicle.
He was struck and thrown and he landed where I found him, motionless in the snow, by his Bible.
…
“Where is he?” I heard her say. “He is my husband.”I looked up when I heard those words, and saw a woman walking toward us. I was dreading her arrival. I did not want her to see or experience this. I could not imagine the pain and sorrow inherent in a situation like this.
She was dressed as conservative Christian women sometimes are, in a long dress, it might have been denim, and I think her hair was long and up on her head.
As she approached us, she was calm and business like. She asked how he was and what had happened.
Then she knelt and began to pray.
She may have held his hand, she may have leaned in toward his head. As she spoke, I cast my eyes down and reverently listened. She addressed God. Whether she called him “Dear Lord” or “Heavenly Father” or something else, I can’t recall. But she addressed him, and then she thanked him.
And she offered him praise.
Her words were not words of pleading, they were words of praise and gratitude.
And then she said something like, “If today you wish to call him home and take him from us – thy will be done.”
Thy will be done.
The line from the Lord’s Prayer. The hardest part of faith. At a moment when most of us would be begging God to give us what we want – to spare us our loved one – she asked the Lord to do his will, what he wanted. She trusted him, and had faith in him.
Where could there be a truer test or demonstration of faith than in the snow beside the broken and near lifeless body of your sweetheart and spouse? In that situation, there can be no pretense, no show, only the heartfelt honesty of a soul in direct communion with its Creator.
And in her moment of test, in her own Gethsemane, she literally prayed, like her Savior before her, not my will, but thine, be done.
But if it was not his time to die, if the Lord did not want to call him home, she asked for his life, for her and their children, and strength through the weeks of hospitalization and recovery.
And then she asked that this event would be turned to the glory of God, that somehow it could touch the heart of someone, that someone might find Jesus, that someone might come to salvation.
And that was her prayer.
…
Here is a news story about this.
May God grant his family the strength and grace to deal with the loss of a great man, husband, and father. He will be deeply missed.
This is such a moving story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us Stephen.
Very somber, yet inspiring story. I have a story of my own to share that happened to me today…
My wife and I had decided to get ourselves bicycles this Christmas so we can get a little more exercise and still spend quality time together. So this afternoon we took a trip to Wal-Mart to find a pair of bicycles we would buy each other as Christmas gifts this year.
I no longer have a pickup truck, as I traded it in to get my wife a new Nissan Altima. As we were walking into the parking lot with the two mountain bikes, we began to worry if they would fit in the trunk of the car. There we were, in the rain, trying desperately to get one of the bikes in the trunk. No matter how we maneuvered the bike, we couldn’t find a way to get it inside the trunk, never mind the other bike that was still waiting to be loaded.
As I was growing frustrated from what appeared to be an impossible task in the cold rain, I heard a woman’s voice behind me, “Would you like any help? You can load the bikes into the bed of my truck and I can give one of you a lift as long as you don’t live too far. If you’d rather not, I understand. I know these days you don’t know who to trust anymore.”
I shared with her my feelings about how unfortunate it is that we must be so weary when it comes to trusting our neighbors, but that I trusted her and that she seemed like a nice enough lady to me.
I was so relieved and thankful. My wife and I took the kind woman up on her offer, letting her know how grateful we were for her generosity and sacrifice. The woman, who was with her daughter of about 10 years old jokingly said, “I can’t tell my husband,” knowing he would be concerned that she allowed my wife, a stranger, to climb into the passenger seat with her and her young daughter in the vehicle.
My wife gave the woman directions to our home about a half-mile away, and I followed behind them in our car. Once we arrived, I unloaded the bikes from the truck bed and put them into my garage. I again expressed my thankfulness to the kindhearted woman, wished her a merry Christmas, and gave her God’s blessing.
I thank the Lord that humility, compassion, and hospitality still exist in some corners of this dark world. I just wanted to post this story as a testament to how important it is to be salt and light to the earth. I don’t know the religious beliefs of the woman today, but I wanted publicly pray over her and her family; that God would bless them, that they would come to know Christ Jesus if they don’t know him already, and that they would continue to minister in whatever way God has planned. Thank you Lord for all you have done and continue to do, both large and small. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Tyler, thanks for a great reminder that there are still glimmers of light in the world. That woman was clearly one of those bright lights in a dark world.
God Bless the memory of this man. God bless and keep the wife and children. It sometimes seems our greatest and brightest moments come from the deepest of tragedies – and this IS a bright moment for all its sorrow. This man’s way of life, this woman’s way of life have made it so.
Peter Kelley