When Ann married, she gave up her nominal Christian belief that seemed irrelevant to her new life. Although Ann and her husband were wealthy, romance faded early, and she soon considered her marriage a disaster. But the lifestyle had its rewards, and she adored her youngest son T. J. She told a friend once that if anything happened to this marvelous 5-year-old, they would have to lock her up.

Ann had never sent her children to Sunday school, and the name of God was never mentioned in their house. One day T. J. said, "Mamma, I love you more than anything in the world except God. And I love him a little bit more!"

She was taken aback and told him that was okay, as long as it was God he loved more than her. But why would he speak of God? she wondered. Even more mysterious was why he should love a God whose name he never heard from her lips.

Two days later was one of the coldest of a bitterly cold winter. While his sister was horseback riding, T. J. crossed a creek that was covered with snow and broke through the ice. He must have died immediately, although it took the family an hour and a half to find him.

The first words out of Ann's mouth when she heard the news were, "I hate you, God!" But even as she spit out the words, she felt herself held in loving arms.

As her world shattered around her, she remembered another mysterious thing T. J. had done that week. He had bought a Christmas gift for her at the Secret Santa shop at school and kept trying to give it to her. She laughed and told him to put it away until Christmas. He was persistent, but she prevailed.

When she got home from the stables, she ran upstairs to the place he kept the gift and opened it to find a beautiful necklace with a cross.

Prior to the accident, her husband had no religious belief, but he cried out to God for help and sensed an immediate response to his prayer. Slowly, their old materialistic lives melted away, their marriage healed, and they became new creatures in Christ.