My Friend Ray

When I received a call about Ray, an old friend, dying in the hospital, I immediately went to see him.  While in route to Shelby Baptist Hospital, my mind raced with all kinds of scenarios concerning his demise.  I had not heard from Ray in a while.  You, as well as I, sometimes let valuable time slip away without talking with old friends.  You do not mean for it to happen, but it does.  We get busy and time flies.

Ray and I made friends when his wife, Jodi, and he started attending my home church.  We were the same age and our children were the same age.  Jodi was a childhood friend of mine.  Ray accepted Christ as his savior because of a revival that started with a study of the Book of Revelation.  Brother Cecil Swell, pastor of West End Baptist Church in Clanton led the study.  I wish I had his notes because it was a wonderful study.

Someone had invited Ray’s brother-in-law and Jodi’s brother, Bobby, to the study.  When Bobby heard the teaching of Brother Cecil, he was scared to death.  Bobby was one of those guys that was scared into the kingdom of God. 

Because of Bobby’s salvation, most of his family became Christians.  It was reminiscent of the Philippian jailer in the Book of Acts were the jailer and his whole family were saved and baptized.  Ray was one of Bobby’s family members, but the range of Revelation spread well beyond Bobby’s extended family.

Ray was eager to hear, study, and learn God’s Word.  I remember spending hours in Bible study with Jodi and him.  Our friendship grew as he grew in the Lord.  He lived nearby so we jogged together; lifted weights together, ate meals together, and visited together.

I never will forget a Thursday night visitation.  Ray and Gary (Scooby) went on visitation with me.  Ray witnessed Scooby as they worked together, and Scooby became a believer.  Both of them were what we term “on fire” for the Lord and they could not wait to share their new faith.

I led them to the house of a fellow that we all knew.  I had been there for several visitations but had no luck.  I thought that these “new boys” might have a great influence knowing that they used to drink together.  When our acquaintance opened the door, he started cussing, ripping, and tearing into us.  I knew he meant no harm, but Ray and Scooby ran as if they met the boogieman.  Suddenly, I found myself all alone.  Our friend had been snorting a few ounces of alcohol, so I said I would come back later and went to retrieve my two new converts who were hiding behind a car.  I reminded them that they were like that at one time.

This was before I surrendered the call into the ministry.  I firmly believed that Scooby and Ray were being called into the ministry, not me.  They had wonderful testimonies and were growing spiritually by leaps and bounds.  I could see God at work in their lives.  Even their wives expressed that they did not know if they could be “preacher wives.” 

I did become a deacon and I realized later that I was the one being called into full time ministry.  Scooby later became our Sunday School director and Ray became a deacon.

Ray eagerly learned and understood the ministry of being a deacon.

Ray and Jodi’s marriage had started on shaky ground having divorced and remarrying about the time of their salvation.  Their commitment to the Lord temporary healed a strained relationship.

As time slipped away, about ten years, the pressure of marriage, kids, and ministry increased.  Ray and Jodi separated a second time.  Ray volunteered to resign as deacon.

With the divorce final, Jodi married another man and Ray started drinking and slowly slipped back into his old ways.  He dated a younger woman, and she became pregnant.  Ray unfortunately chose alcohol for relief and overdosed trying to escape.  With no one to help him, Jodi, with the encouragement of her new husband, stood by Ray’s side in the hospital until he died.  Jodi is the one who called me thinking I could encourage Ray.

Jodi met me and gave me the bad news that he would not live very long.  I will never forget the look in Ray’s eyes as I tried to communicate with him.  He acknowledged me with a penetrating stare from his lifeless body.  He was dying with alcoholic chronic pancreatitis or alcohol poising.  His body could not digest the excessive overdose of alcohol.

I spent as much time allowed by the hospital that afternoon with Ray and Jodi.  Jodi lost the father of her children, and I lost a dear brother in Christ.  There was some much that Ray and I needed to catch up on.  I do not know how much Ray comprehended, but one last time our eyes focused on each other as I told him I loved him.  I thank God for having known Ray and regret I could not help him.

It has been almost thirty years since Ray died the way he did and I have been asked, “Do you think Ray was saved?”  I know he was, but he lost his vision and gave up.  Eugene Peterson expresses it in The Message, “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what God reveals; they are most blessed.”

The King James Version says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18).