Episode 2: Bradley’s Story

Hello, I’m so glad that you’re joining us today. July 4th just passed, and I hope you had a safe and happy holiday with your family. Welcome back and thank you for listening to another episode.

I wanted to share a little bit about the structure as we move forward. I think it’s important that the audience gets to know the host so we’re going to take July for that.

Last week, I shared the 10,000-foot view of my story, where God’s grace had met me over and over. If you’d like to hear it, go back and check out “A New Thing”. Today, we’re going to start the descent below 10,000 feet into the trenches.

Today, we’ll discuss Bradley, our youngest son. Next week, I’ll be sharing about my breast cancer journey. Then the next week, we’ll discuss deep betrayal by a best friend and what I learned about forgiveness. Finally, the last week of this month, I will be interviewing my husband. We’ll discuss marriage issues through hard times, wilderness times.

From there, we will vary it up a bit. At times, there will be Bible teaching, featuring the women of the Bible who have gone through wilderness times to find that God saved them. Miraculous stories that still inspire us today as women of God. We will probably take time out to discuss the spiritual disciplines like prayer and Bible study and worship and arming ourselves with the armor of God. Without these things, difficult times are made even harder.

Once a month, we will have a special guest to discuss how grace is the only thing that got them through their wilderness. This entire podcast has a goal of proving grace through real life experiences. God is real. God is dependable. He is full of mercy and love.

Hebrews 10 23 says, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 

This podcast is all about glorifying the grace of God, and it’s about him and no one else. We have only recently turned the calendar to July, and with it comes an all too familiar sense of sadness for me.

July is the birth month of our son Bradley. On July 17, he would have been 24 years old. Instead, on November 10, 2021, at the age of 21 years old, he met Jesus face to face. Oh, how we miss him. Bradley had the most amazing story of victory. There just simply were no words to explain the special person that he was.

He could rattle the windows of a room with his laughter. He had a permanent blue mark on the side of his leg from where I pinched it when he was a little boy because of that laugh. He would laugh in church at the most inappropriate times. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to hear it just one more time.

He had the biggest smile, the most beautiful heart when he would let you see it. He was my baby. I loved his big bear hugs that just covered me. I loved him so deeply. And that love didn’t stop just because he’s no longer here with me in person. My heart is shattered in a million pieces knowing I now have to learn to try to live in a world where there is no Bradley.

It’s been two years and eight months. It’s still hard. I’ve never known a mom who’s lost a child that didn’t die with a broken heart.

Grieving is hard. You do what you have to do to get through. There have been many tears and many sad days since losing Bradley, and I’ve found that you have to take it one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.

It’s such a comfort to know that I can crawl up into my Father’s lap, and he’s always there for me. God is always faithful. Bradley was wild at heart, and he had a calling to adventure. He felt closest to God in nature. Right before he passed, he hiked 68 miles on the Appalachian Trail to spend time alone with God. I’m sure that God was preparing him for what was ahead.

He hiked and canoed hundreds of miles, some alone, some with Fair Play Boys Camp School, some with Boy Scouts. He was an Eagle Scout, and he achieved that honor start to finish in three years. He had just returned to scouting as an Assistant Scout Master to help other boys, and he worked at Camp Old Indian for a couple of summers and impacted many boys’ lives through those years.

I had the pleasure of taking many day hikes with him, and we would sing and share and laugh and cry and pray and talk endlessly on our trips. I praise God for those hikes. Those are some of the sweetest memories of him that I will now carry for the rest of my life. They have helped me through some of my darkest days. Bradley was formed in my heart and not in my tummy. He was, in every sense of the word, our son.

My husband and I wanted a second child, and after our older son, Taylor, was born, we tried to have another child for four years, and we couldn’t. I longed for another child, and I begged God to answer my prayer or take that desire away. He answered that prayer and led us to international adoption, and we began the process in the year 2000.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Kharkov, Ukraine, a five-pound baby boy was born at 30 weeks to a 20-year-old unmarried woman. And even though she abandoned Bradley at the hospital, I will forever be grateful that she didn’t abort him. Even then, Bradley was not alone.

God was with him. Psalm 139:16 says, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God had a special plan for Bradley’s life. Bradley went to an orphanage when he was four months old. It was understaffed and very poor. The babies could not be properly held, loved, and cared for because of understaffing. And when the wind blew, it blew right through the doors.

I’m sure the devil thought, “Oh, I have this boy. No problem. No one wants him. He’s a throwaway. He’ll be mine in hell for sure, for sure.” But God said, “Oh, no, he won’t.” The devil underestimated how much God wanted my boy and loved him.

And the Lord also knew how much we wanted him too. So He answered our prayers and brought us together. In October of 2001, Scott and I and our six-year-old son, Taylor, met this precious little 15-month-old boy face to face.

God had answered our prayers, specifically Taylor’s prayer for a baby brother. He moved heaven and earth to bring us together in that little room in the Kharkov orphanage and into our family forever. I will never forget the nurse walking in holding him. He reached out his little hand toward us, as if to claim his new family, and he reached straight into my heart and stole it forever from that moment on. With tears in his eyes, my husband turned to me and said, “We want him, don’t we?” And I said, “Oh, yes, oh, yes, we do.”

From that moment on, he was ours. It has been a bumpy, wild ride, wonderful at times, heart-wrenching at others. It was right after 9-11 when we traveled, and we were on the brink of war in the Middle East, not far away.

God carried us through adopting our precious little Bradley and brought us home on November 1st. They told us that when the plane landed, Bradley would be a US citizen. And as we landed in Memphis, I thought the wheels were going to fall off the plane. They bounced so much.

That was just the start of the bumps. Bradley had trouble adjusting when we got home. He would reject our love. I would beg him to eat in his highchair and he wouldn’t. And when I would get him down soon after, I would find him on the floor looking for crumbs. He was hungry. He just didn’t want to take it from us. He just couldn’t trust.

Our baby boy was broken, and he was unable to love us or accept our love. He had cried so much for love and food that never came in the orphanage. I’m sure the devil thought he had won and doomed this boy to a loveless life.

“No, Satan, you’re wrong again. But God.” Time went on and Bradley grew and grew.

We poured love on him like Niagara Falls, praying that just a few drops could sink in. He fought to reject it. He was impulsive and he lacked conscience. And our lives at home were filled with chaos from a spiritual battle that raged over him and continued until the day that he died. We fought this battle on our knees.

He was in church from the first week home from Ukraine. He came to know about the Lord. And at some point, Praise God, I know that he personally came to know him as his Lord and Savior! One Saturday morning when Bradley was seven years old, he came flying out of the door of the basement where he was watching Left Behind. He came across the yard yelling, I don’t want to get Left Behind, Mom. I remember sitting down with him right there in the dirt where I was planting flowers to explain to him how to ask Jesus into his heart. And so I shared that plan with him, and he said that he accepted Christ.

There weren’t a lot of changes. The behaviors continued, and he had many struggles. When he was 13, he, along with our family, decided that it was best that he go away to a wilderness camp called Fair Play Camp School for Boys.

It’s a wonderful camp in Westminster, South Carolina, where young men can live in community with other young men out in the woods. He was there for a couple of years, and right before he came home at age 15, he told me that he accepted Christ as he sat on the riverbank with one of his chiefs there.

After Bradley came home, we had a honeymoon period where things were better, but then he returned to the previous behaviors. When he was leaning into the Lord, he had the most wonderful, caring heart and would do anything for you. He was always looking for someone else to serve, like a widow to cut her grass. He had the most beautiful, precious heart.

Then the devil would get him alone in the darkness and whisper lies to Bradley. You’re not enough. You’ll never reach your goals. You can’t do this. You’re no good. No one really loves you. When Bradley would listen, he would start a cycle of lying and manipulation that pushed those who loved him most away. The devil tortured my son for his whole life, and he pursued that baby from the orphanage. He never wanted to let him go.

Before Bradley turned 18, his dad had a talk with him and told him that he was going to have to stop his behaviors of lying and stealing and aggression, or he wasn’t going to be able to live in our home. Bradley couldn’t help himself. The behaviors continued.

So when he was 18, God blessed Bradley and made a way for him to go and live at Wild Orchard, North Paris Sanctuary, at Travelers Rest, SC, with some amazing men who loved him so much and sowed into his life.

I’ve had many long talks with Bradley about his salvation. He knew the Lord, and people closest to him knew how very much he loved the Lord.

I have his journal now, and a page from around July of 2021 is the most priceless of gifts to me now that he is gone. It said, “Dear Lord, thank you for all you do for me, for propelling me forward. Let me walk with patience. Lord, continue to let me handle responsibility. Lead and guide me in the challenge of blessing. Amen” Then in bold writing, Bradley wrote, “I am yours.”

His journal represents so well his struggles. I knew that he wrote that because he hated cursive, and it was so messy. That was my Bradley. He so wanted God and all he had for him, but the devil tortured him and when Bradley would listen to the lies, he would rebel and hurt himself and others in the process. The devil tried to stop him constantly from fulfilling what God had for him. His journal is filled with prayers to God, prayers for his family, prayers for his friends, prayers for himself to be who God wanted him to be.

His prayer repeatedly in his journal was Psalm 51:10 through 12. It was also underlined in his Bible, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” He went out and back from surrender to rebellion. I’ve never seen anyone more pursued by the devil, never letting up. I would plead with Bradley, Trust the Lord, honey, surrender. You are no match for the devil. The battle is the Lord’s.

He would lean into the Lord and start doing well. Behind Bradley’s beautiful smile, infectious laugh, and love for life was a young man yearning for peace, who suffered greatly.

Praise God, he has found that peace today in glory, and his battles are over, and he is experiencing the precious victory that Jesus won for him when he died on the cross.

God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. I thank God for my precious son. He had such a huge role in growing me in the Lord, making me a better person, more of a prayer warrior, and more compassionate for hurting people.

I’ll spend the rest of my life telling what Jesus did for Bradley, and for me, through Bradley. What the devil meant for evil, God used for good in so many ways in his life.

On November 10, 2021, it was a beautiful fall day. Bradley came by the house. He and his girlfriend were off work from tractor supply, and he was headed to Easley to Joe’s to have a chili cheeseburger with everything. And I’m sure he didn’t forget the mint ice cream. They crossed the road and went to Uncle Sam’s antique store and spent a little time. Then they got their skateboards. When they got to the top of the doodle trail in Easley, they both hopped on their boards.

His girlfriend’s board started to wobble, so she jumped off. But Bradley took that hill. When he got to the bottom, there was a bump in the road. His skateboard broke, and he fell and hit the back of his head. And he died on the way to the hospital from cardiac arrest. I know what really happened is he skidded straight into heaven sideways. And if I know my boy, he yelled, “Wow, what a ride! My 230-pound Eagle Scout was gone. Life is so fragile. I miss him so much.

That morning, he was waking up to the most beautiful day off and enjoying doing what he loved the most. His best day was my worst day. And that night, his body was headed to Colombia to harvest his organs, to donate to others, to give them life. Life is a vapor. Could that be you? We’re not promised tomorrow.

All of Bradley’s story really boils down to one simple truth. He made a simple decision to accept Christ, and it changed everything. And now he’s a brother to Christ, and he lives in heaven, and he waits for me. And I can’t wait to see him one day there. I beg you, don’t wait if you haven’t made that one simple decision that changed everything for Bradley.

Maybe you feel unwanted. God wants the unwanted. Don’t listen to the lies of the devil telling you that you’re no good. You’re fearfully and wonderfully made and supremely loved by the God of the universe.

And if you were the only one, he would have sent his Son Jesus to die just for you. He will chase you to the ends of the earth to make you his child, just like he chased Bradley all the way to Ukraine and back. Is it time you quit running?

All it takes is that one simple decision to admit that you are a sinner and that you need a Savior, to accept that Christ is the Son of God, and that He came to die for you, and that he was resurrected and lives forever. Then commit to give your life to serve him.

I’m going to see my boy again one fine day. Every mom I know who’s lost a child has a verse or two. Here are mine.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says, “Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I thank God for eternity, for His salvation, and for His amazing grace in the wilderness.

Episode 1: A New Thing

I’m Sharon Hawkins, and I’m going to share a little bit of my story with you.

I was blessed before I was ever born, because I was born to Christian parents, and they took me to church. And on one sunny Sunday morning, when I was nine years old, Pastor Robert Orr told me that I couldn’t do anything good enough to get me into Heaven on my own. He said I needed a Savior, and that God loved me so much that He sent His only Son Jesus to die just for me, and to pay the price for my sins so I could go to Heaven. And all I had to do was accept His precious gift and ask Him to come into my heart. I was terrified!

I said, “God, I’m too scared to go down there in front of all these people.” And I bargained with Him to please give me till that night, until we could return to church. My mama mentioned not going back to church that afternoon, and I told her, ”We gotta go, Mom.” I’m sure she wondered, “What in the world has come over her.”

We went back to church that night, and I know I didn’t hear a word the preacher said. I wanted him to be quiet so I could get down to that altar and give my heart and life to Jesus. He talked with me, and I did give my heart and life to Jesus.

Then he told the church of my decision, and he sent me down to the front pew where my sweet, humble daddy was sitting there with the other deacons on the front row. That was when all the men used to sit up front. I hopped onto daddy’s knee, and he burst into tears. I then knew I had made a wonderful decision, and looking back, I really had no idea how truly amazing it was going to be to walk with Jesus as the Lord of my life until it happened to me. 

At 19, I married a man who was both physically and emotionally abusive to me, and by God’s grace, I got out of that marriage after eight years before becoming completely destroyed. I was mad at God for a few years after that. I was doing all the right things. We were in church. I was praying for my marriage, but it still failed.

After three years, I woke up, and I was remarried to the most wonderful man in the world, Scott Hawkins, and we had a beautiful baby boy, Taylor. I realized that God had been faithful to me when I wasn’t faithful to him, and I came back to my first love. I came back to Jesus, who gently tapped on the door of my heart that day when I was nine years old.

And he humbly asked if he could come in. That’s so like him, not to come in like a freight train, but to ask gently in a quiet voice, can I come be Lord of your life? I’m so glad I said yes. It’s the most important decision I’ve ever made.

When Taylor was little, I started a business, an insurance administration company that I began out of my house.

We struggled for four years with infertility as we wanted another child, and I begged God to either take that desire from me or to give us another child. So He led us to international adoption. In 2001, right after 9-11, we flew to Ukraine to adopt our precious Bradley. He was a 15-month-old boy who had been abandoned by his mom in the orphanage there in Kharkov.

He had emotional struggles because he wasn’t held and loved as he should have been during those first 15 months of his life. I would feed him, and he would refuse to eat. I would turn around later after I’d put him down from his high chair and find that he was looking for crumbs on the floor. He had trouble trusting because he had been rejected so much.

We loved our son, and, during those years, we worked so hard to pour love on him like Niagara Falls to try to help him to accept love and give love.

In 2002, my business partner was leaving, and I was struggling with being rejected by our new son and really trying to get him adjusted. So I went to the loneliest place. I had an emotional breakdown. I was emptied so that God could fill me and carry me out of that pit. And boy, did He!

“Looking back, I know he was preparing me for the path to come. In 2004, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, then colon cancer. My dad had suffered from Parkinson’s since 1988, and my brother and I helped to take care of both of them until they both passed.

In 2005, I found out that my employee had stolen $75,000 from my business, and it took us a year to clean up that mess that was made by that. Mom’s cancer spread to her lungs, then in March of 2008, she passed away. After she died, I was at one of the lowest places in my life–a place and time when God did some amazing things.

He led me to start a women’s ministry called Grace In The Wilderness. It was not what I was expecting at all. It was during a time when I was grieving mom’s death, taking care of my dad who had Parkinson’s and who was grieving his wife.

I was raising, with Scott, a special needs child and was running a high stress company that was working me way more than 40 hours a week.

I attended a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina for Proverbs 31 ministry called She Speaks. And during that conference, God spoke to me in some incredible ways. I went seeking answers and a break from all the struggles that I was dealing with.

I will never forget coming home that Sunday and sitting on our bed. And I told my husband, “I know that you thought I would come back refreshed, but I have to tell you that God’s doing something amazing and He wants us to start a women’s ministry called Grace In The Wilderness.” My sweet husband looked at me and he said, “Well, if He’s called us to it, then I know that He’ll give us what we need.”

And through all the years of Grace In The Wilderness, Scott has been right there by my side. And I can’t imagine doing it without him.

Marie Pritchett joined me in the ministry, and one of the very first conferences that we did was for bereaved moms. There are many other support groups now, including one for widows, cancer patients, caregivers, ministries for women and teen girls.Our Empowered Jesus Girl group is one of our biggest. There are support groups for all of these ministries. Over 16 years there have been 45 conferences. That’s all God!

He’s worked amazingly through Grace In The Wilderness. Just because I started the ministry didn’t mean that my struggles became easier. Along with other challenges I mentioned, 2011 was a year of deep struggle for me. In June of that year, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had double mastectomies. In a four-week period in November of 2011, I had my third painful breast surgery;  I was diagnosed with melanoma; and my best friend who worked for me in my business for 12 years was sent to federal prison for embezzling over $600,000 from me and my company.

The breast cancer and surgeries left me with a debilitating nerve pain illness that causes me to hurt still every day of my life.

In 2016, my dad passed away. Parkinson’s is such a cruel disease. After his swallowing shut down, my brother and I had to basically watch him starve. It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m so thankful that my mom and dad both are free from their suffering, and now they live in eternal bliss in heaven with Jesus and each other.

You know, I’ve had talks with the Lord about all this. I’ve asked, Lord, “I know you’ve called me to minister to women who are hurting, but do all these things have to happen to me?” I remember in the shower one night, just whining to God. You know, it’s a great place to cry in the shower because the water just washes your tears away. I was quickly reminded that I hadn’t lost a child. And to me, that is the worst thing that can happen. Many of my friends had lost children, and I was working in ministry with them and seeing how they suffered and struggled.

Well, on November 10, 2021, the worst thing did happen to us. Our 21-year-old son Bradley died. Bradley was my baby. I loved his big bear hugs that just covered me. I know in heaven now he has a new body. I’m so hoping that his hugs still feel the same for the day that I’m reunited with him in heaven. I loved him so deeply, and my heart is shattered in a million pieces, knowing I have to now try to live in a world where there is no Bradley. Bradley has the most beautiful story of victory.

I can’t wait to share more about that with you in future episodes. Let’s just say for now that we all expect for our children to carry our legacies, but I find myself now carrying his. Why am I telling you all of this?

Am I just wanting to tell you some sad stories? Well, life is sad, and life is hard. But what I want to share with you more than anything else is that the hope and grace of God that can be found in the hardest trials. Through hardships and trials and blessings, I have learned that there is no end to God’s mercy, His grace, or His faithfulness. There is simply no better friend than Jesus.

There have been days when I simply could not go on without. Him. I couldn’t even get out of bed without Him. My story is His story. “His story is why I felt led to start this podcast through many years in ministry. I have seen Him work in ways that could only be explained as miraculous grace.

For 14 years before Bradley passed away, I worked in a ministry for bereaved women, moms who had lost their children. I always looked at them in awe and wondered how they made it, how they had these beautiful smiles, how they went on. Then when I lost my son, I realized that God gives us an extra abundance of grace. He gives us what we need, and we can’t get grace for other people. It’s like manna. It’s only for us and only for today.

But it’s enough. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 and 10 says, But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Oh, how I wish. His power would rest on me every day of my life. There have been so many days, especially since losing Bradley, that I felt I couldn’t go on. But if I could just get to the night and get through the night, somehow the next day was always better.

Lamentations 3, 22 and 23 says, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. And I want to share it with anyone who will listen.

Now there is this new thing he has put before me, a podcast. I could offer you a lot of excuses for why this podcast has not happened until now. Health challenges, life challenges, time management challenges, mostly wilderness challenges. The truth is life is one big, fat, overwhelming challenge, isn’t it?

I know you already know this. It’s not that I’ve not been obedient exactly. I spend a lot of time hiding out in busyness, getting ready to get ready. There’s also been a little fear sprinkled in there too. And when we’re afraid, we hide, don’t we?

Is there something that God is calling you to do? Is He doing a new thing in your life too? Maybe it’s time to step out and say, “Here I am, Lord. My answer is yes.”

I don’t know much about podcasting. Okay, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m working really hard at it. God knows all about it, and I’m trusting in Him to help me with it.

I finally discovered two things:

• that I will never start unless getting started becomes more important than getting ready
• that the only way it will happen is to get started.

Most importantly, even at the risk of failing, I absolutely owe it to God to do what He asked me to do. He is faithful, and. He goes before us when we step out for.He has been there for me.

When it came time for the children of Israel to carry the Ark of the Covenant across the Jordan River, the Lord gave instructions. Joshua 3,7-8 says, “And the Lord said to Joshua, Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so that you may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant. When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.” Then in verse 13, “As soon as the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

Yes, the Lord went before the children of Israel, but if the priests had not put their feet in the Jordan, God would not have stopped the waters. He’s going before us, too. We have to take that first step, though. “Are you ready? What is it that He’s leading you to do? Take that first step in faith.

Test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing for you until it overflows. Malachi 3:10.

God has been more than faithful to me always, and I want to be faithful to. Him. God has promised that He will even make a way in the wilderness, and. He has definitely done that in my life.

There have been so many trials in my life that He has brought me through, and I’m sure there will be more to come. I’ll be sharing more about our adventures in future issues. It’s time for me to make a way for Him and to step out with this new thing. He’s calling me to do.

So into the water I go…

Welcome to my new podcast. I plan to share a new episode every Monday night at 8.

Once a month, I plan to interview a special guest who has experienced God’s amazing grace in the wilderness and will share how God is bringing them through. Now, what about you? What’s that thing God’s calling you to do?

Today is the day. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Dear Lord, help us to step out in new resolve for you. May we never forget that you make a way for us and that your grace is sufficient always. Amen