Featured Testimony
Terri-Lee Clark
I was raised in a Christian home and at a young age had a love of Jesus. I’m so thankful that during my teenage years didn’t walk away from my faith.
In September of 1994, I married my High School sweetheart, John Claybrook Richards.
In December of 1985, I was on my way home from EMS Training when I was hit by a drunk driver which the State Trooper estimated that he was going seventy miles per hour when he hit me.
My car was totaled, my spine had severe damage from my cervical spine to my lumbar spine. Because my car was totaled it was necessary that I purchase a new car. Four weeks after the accident I went shopping for a new car. I found one with four miles on the odometer and called to ask my husband if he wanted to test drive it. He told me to go ahead and purchase the vehicle.
Just two weeks after purchasing my new vehicle, my husband and I had met several friends at a local restaurant in Warrenton, Va. to have dinner together and enjoy an evening of fellowship. When we were ready to leave to head home, I had decided to ride with a friend so she wouldn't be alone. My husband left approximately ten minutes before us. When I arrived home my husband was not yet there and certainly should have been there before me. I got in our car and drove back to town to see if he had come back to see if I would ride home with him. But he was not there. I went to the pay phone to call his parents to see if he had stopped by to visit
When I stepped back into my car, my fire and rescue radio webt off dispatching a car fire just three miles from where I was located. Something sunk in me that I had never felt before when hearing a car fire dispatched.
I drove to the location of the car fire and in the darkness of the night in an abandoned parking lot, I saw a vehicle fully engulfed in flames. As I made my way to it, I got halfway to it and realized that this was my new vehicle. I began screaming my husband’s name I made my way closer to the vehicle. I got as close as I could and I could see my husband inside of the burning vehicle and there was nothing I could do to get him out. Fire and Rescue were not yet on the scene. They arrived within minutes of my arrival on the scene.
This is where the test of my faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ would be tested. I have found that when people experience a traumatic loss and they have a faith, they do one of two things. They either walk away from their faith because they are mad at God for allowing this to happen or they cling tighter to their faith and their relationship with Jesus Christ because they know that He is the only way they will get through the pain they are experiencing. I chose the latter because I knew that the only way I would get through this was with Jesus Christ by my side.
Thirteen months after the death of my first husband, I attended a banquet at the Warrenton Volunteer Fire Co. I was there to represent the department with which I was a volunteer firefighter and paramedic. It was here that I met JT Clark. We went on our first date the following night and eleven days later he asked me to marry him.
Six months later we were married. It was during the six months leading up to our wedding that JT shared with me that for the previous seven years he had suffered with depression and suicidal ideation. He also shared with me that he didn't have a faith walk.
I began praying for JT asking God to touch JT and healing him, as well as bringing him to his salvation. I heard God on my Spirit regularly “ I will heal him and will bring him to his salvation, but what I need you to do is to walk your faith out in front of him, show him the love of Jesus and be obedient to what I’m asking you to do.” I could certainly do what was being asked of me.
During the first seven years of our marriage we had three beautiful daughters, which God blessed us.
I walked through many trials during the first twenty eight years of our marriage where there were times when I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. God strengthened me during these times and when it became too overwhelming God would carry me.
The journey of waking this out with JT, as he battled depression, suicide attempts and a desire everyday to be dead was something that I dealt with on a daily basis for twenty three years before God healed him just as He said He would. I prayed for another six years after his healing for his salvation which came after the tragic death of his eldest brother and sister-in-law.
It was just a few months after JT accepted his salvation that we started our ministry, My Brothers’ Crossing. In 2019 we walked away from secular careers. I had to sell interest in my Family’s business, which had been left to me for my financial security, as well as to pass down to whatever children and grandchildren I would one day have so that our Family Legacy could continue. In 2020 our movie was to come out in theaters across the United States and COVID shut it down and we lost everything. Since that time we have been living by faith trusting God to meet our every need. He has been faithful through those who have been obedient to what was laid on their Spirit to help us financially, pray for us, encourage us, text or call us just when we needed to hear that we were doing exactly as God wanted us to do. We can never begin to tell each of you what this has meant to us and how humbled we are to have so many around us who been here beside us through thick and thin.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 has been my “go to” verse for over 38 years.
May God bless each of you abundantly.
In His Service,
Terri-Lee Clark
In September of 1994, I married my High School sweetheart, John Claybrook Richards.
In December of 1985, I was on my way home from EMS Training when I was hit by a drunk driver which the State Trooper estimated that he was going seventy miles per hour when he hit me.
My car was totaled, my spine had severe damage from my cervical spine to my lumbar spine. Because my car was totaled it was necessary that I purchase a new car. Four weeks after the accident I went shopping for a new car. I found one with four miles on the odometer and called to ask my husband if he wanted to test drive it. He told me to go ahead and purchase the vehicle.
Just two weeks after purchasing my new vehicle, my husband and I had met several friends at a local restaurant in Warrenton, Va. to have dinner together and enjoy an evening of fellowship. When we were ready to leave to head home, I had decided to ride with a friend so she wouldn't be alone. My husband left approximately ten minutes before us. When I arrived home my husband was not yet there and certainly should have been there before me. I got in our car and drove back to town to see if he had come back to see if I would ride home with him. But he was not there. I went to the pay phone to call his parents to see if he had stopped by to visit
When I stepped back into my car, my fire and rescue radio webt off dispatching a car fire just three miles from where I was located. Something sunk in me that I had never felt before when hearing a car fire dispatched.
I drove to the location of the car fire and in the darkness of the night in an abandoned parking lot, I saw a vehicle fully engulfed in flames. As I made my way to it, I got halfway to it and realized that this was my new vehicle. I began screaming my husband’s name I made my way closer to the vehicle. I got as close as I could and I could see my husband inside of the burning vehicle and there was nothing I could do to get him out. Fire and Rescue were not yet on the scene. They arrived within minutes of my arrival on the scene.
This is where the test of my faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ would be tested. I have found that when people experience a traumatic loss and they have a faith, they do one of two things. They either walk away from their faith because they are mad at God for allowing this to happen or they cling tighter to their faith and their relationship with Jesus Christ because they know that He is the only way they will get through the pain they are experiencing. I chose the latter because I knew that the only way I would get through this was with Jesus Christ by my side.
Thirteen months after the death of my first husband, I attended a banquet at the Warrenton Volunteer Fire Co. I was there to represent the department with which I was a volunteer firefighter and paramedic. It was here that I met JT Clark. We went on our first date the following night and eleven days later he asked me to marry him.
Six months later we were married. It was during the six months leading up to our wedding that JT shared with me that for the previous seven years he had suffered with depression and suicidal ideation. He also shared with me that he didn't have a faith walk.
I began praying for JT asking God to touch JT and healing him, as well as bringing him to his salvation. I heard God on my Spirit regularly “ I will heal him and will bring him to his salvation, but what I need you to do is to walk your faith out in front of him, show him the love of Jesus and be obedient to what I’m asking you to do.” I could certainly do what was being asked of me.
During the first seven years of our marriage we had three beautiful daughters, which God blessed us.
I walked through many trials during the first twenty eight years of our marriage where there were times when I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. God strengthened me during these times and when it became too overwhelming God would carry me.
The journey of waking this out with JT, as he battled depression, suicide attempts and a desire everyday to be dead was something that I dealt with on a daily basis for twenty three years before God healed him just as He said He would. I prayed for another six years after his healing for his salvation which came after the tragic death of his eldest brother and sister-in-law.
It was just a few months after JT accepted his salvation that we started our ministry, My Brothers’ Crossing. In 2019 we walked away from secular careers. I had to sell interest in my Family’s business, which had been left to me for my financial security, as well as to pass down to whatever children and grandchildren I would one day have so that our Family Legacy could continue. In 2020 our movie was to come out in theaters across the United States and COVID shut it down and we lost everything. Since that time we have been living by faith trusting God to meet our every need. He has been faithful through those who have been obedient to what was laid on their Spirit to help us financially, pray for us, encourage us, text or call us just when we needed to hear that we were doing exactly as God wanted us to do. We can never begin to tell each of you what this has meant to us and how humbled we are to have so many around us who been here beside us through thick and thin.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 has been my “go to” verse for over 38 years.
May God bless each of you abundantly.
In His Service,
Terri-Lee Clark