Through the Valley of Deep Darkness was written at the suggestion of a grief counselor. She believed Reverend Arner's story of overcoming hatred, anger, and the desire for revenge and discovering rituals that lead to peace would be beneficial to others. The evil within Reverend Arner came to the fore when his one-year-old grandson died in a fire set by the child's father, and his daughter, the child's mother, suffered second- and third-degree burns over 70 percent of her body, requiring a six-week stay in the University of Virginia Trauma/Burn Unit; she was not expected to survive. Also part of this story of overcoming was the trial of the child's father on capital one murder. Arson and attempted murder changes. Reverend Arner shares the spiritual resources within a community of faithful relationships which enabled him and his wife to overcome, to come "through the valley of deepest darkness."

Through the Valley of the Deep Darkness

Holding onto the Ancient TestimoniesBy Thomas Arner

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Thomas Arner
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-5502-8

Chapter One

The Night of Our Deepest Darkness

On the Edge of the Darkness

That Sunday, October 10, 1999, dawned like most ordinary Sundays. I must confess that it was my habit to rise early Sunday mornings, hours before I needed to rise. It was my practice to go through my morning routine without any haste, deliberately, as if time was a luxury to be enjoyed. On Sunday mornings I never wanted to hurry. As I showered, shaved, and dressed, I would rehearse in my mind the day's preaching. Having dressed, I would read through the service, reread the scriptures, think through prayers and envision persons who would need prayers, and reread my preaching manuscript. Then I would prepare the elements of our breakfast, prepare the breakfast table, and then awaken Marian, if she was not awake. Ordinary. No questions. Routine. To be sure. Most Sundays I followed this pattern. I repeat, I followed this pattern because I did not like to be hurried on Sunday mornings.

And that October Sunday was no different. I followed my routine, deliberately, as usual. There was one exception that day: that afternoon we were to attend the birthday party of our grandson, Zackary, whose first birthday had been that Thursday. Our daughter Elise informed us it would be a simple affair. She told us several close friends from St. John's had been invited as well as few of her and Michael's Stuarts Draft friends. (Michael Ledford was Elise's husband.) We were told also to provide the birthday cake.

There were specific instructions for the cake. It was to be decorated with Winnie-the-Pooh characters. Marian had ordered the cake at the Staunton Wal-Mart. The cake was to be ready by 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

That Sunday morning, I struggled to concentrate on my worship responsibilities and tried not to allow thoughts of Zackary's birthday party, nor any of many other alien thoughts, to affect my preparation for worship.

Marian, on the other hand, was troubled. I knew she was troubled. Her movements, her body language, her speech left no doubt she was troubled. From the moment Marian arose that October Sunday morning, I sensed, I knew, as one knows another person after forty years of marriage, Marian was tense, even angry. She did not need to say a word. The look in her eyes, her movements as she dressed, her body language radiated that tenseness. For some months Marian had been troubled by Elise and Michael's relationship. Michael's attitude and actions disturbed and angered Marian. Yes, that October Sunday, Marian's anger boiled, all but boiled over.

I'll share the reasons for Marian's anger and mine. At that time, Michael was employed part-time by the Stuarts Draft Food Lion. Elise was employed full-time at White Birch Estates as a direct care aide. In fact, that Sunday Elise had worked from 6:00 a.m. until noon and was scheduled to be at White Birch again on Monday at 6:00 a.m.

Although Michael's schedule was such that he could have provided care for Zackary, he did not. Often upon Elise's return from White Birch Estates, she would find Zackary in unchanged, messed diapers, unchanged for hours. Therefore, although Michael and Elise could ill afford the cost, Zackary was now in Stuarts Draft Day Care Program.

We were further disturbed because Michael did not want full-time employment. He wanted free time to frequent the Stuarts Draft Rescue and Fire Station. Michael considered himself a firefighter. (At one point there were ads for paid firefighters. Michael filled out the applications, but they were rejected, or he never submitted them. He expressed this thought: "If I were paid to fight fires, it wouldn't be fun anymore.") We learned later Food Lion managers thought that Michael had another full-time job, so they never offered him full-time employment.

Marian was troubled also by Michael's employment history. Upon Michael's arrival in Stuarts Draft, sometime in the fall of 1997, after some searching and Marian's pushing him to search for a job, he was employed by RadioShack at the Staunton Mall. (Before moving in with us to find employment in the area, Michael had been employed by the Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, RadioShack. Michael lived with us while Elise completed her schooling at Pennsylvania College of Technology, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Michael proposed marriage officially on Christmas Eve that year, and they were married in May 1998.) Michael showed us letters of high praise from the RadioShack management. (I came to suspect Michael wrote the letters himself.) In spite of those letters, a month or two later Michael was released. Michael stated that he had sold a computer system and earned a substantial commission for that sale. However, the customer was not satisfied with the system and returned it. Thus Michael had to forfeit his commission. That commission was to be taken out of his weekly salary. However, when the customer returned the computer, another RadioShack employee's ID number was entered into the store computer, and thus the repayment sum was taken out of that employee's salary. Michael had entered that ID number into the RadioShack computer system. Michael swore again and again that he did not know that employee's ID number and could not have entered it intentionally into the store's computer. The RadioShack management did not buy his statement. The result was that RadioShack terminated Michael and his immediate supervisor. RadioShack terminated that supervisor because the management believed he was a coconspirator in what Michael had done. The RadioShack management did not press charges either against Michael or his supervisor. Marian and I also had unanswered questions about Michael's account of the incident.

That was not the only incident Michael had had with RadioShack. Prior to Michael's departure from the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, RadioShack establishment, there had been a fire in the storage area of that business. Michael was not on duty when the fire began. It was not a major fire. It was reported that a small candle had been set in combustible material, which ignited when the candle burned down to it. Michael was never questioned by fire investigators. We learned sometime later that his mother refused to allow investigators to question him.

Michael had other troubled employment relationships. After his stint at RadioShack, Michael was employed by the Staunton Wal-Mart. He was fired. He related that he had punched out a fellow employee who, Michael claimed, made a homosexual pass at him. At that point Michael had Elise draw up an agreement for him to buy that Wal-Mart store. Michael claimed that he had worked for a stockbroker after he dropped out of high school and had some $3,000,000 in stock certificates in a safe. (He never did say where that safe was.) I saw that letter, with its plans and proposals for operating the store, a detailed salary grid, and other proposals. That proposal was never submitted to the local Wal-Mart management.

Later Michael found a job with Baugher Chevrolet-Buick, Waynesboro. He did not do well. He praised the dealership owner, who did not mind his salespeople sleeping on the job if they were firefighters. That said a lot. The week before Christmas, Michael was terminated. Elise was so angry that she wrote a nasty letter to the dealership owner. In that letter, Elise ranted that Mr. Baugher was insensitive and heartless for firing an employee the week before Christmas.

Marian was...