Where God Met Me
A CALL TO MINISTRY
Davey grew up as a pastor’s kid in Birmingham, Alabama. As far as he can remember church was always a part of his life. Although he was a Christian, he thought following Jesus meant being a good person. He had no interest in going into ministry himself, instead he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon and make lots of money. Davey’s plans for his future changed in high school when he attended a youth conference. The speaker talked about answering the call to ministry. During the altar call, Davey felt compelled to answer the call to full time ministry. The next year, he received a full ride baseball scholarship for a small Christian college in South Carolina. In college, he began attending NewSpring Church which was unlike any other church he had attended. The worship was powerful, the message was compelling, and many in attendance gave their lives to Christ. “God began calling me deeper into the idea of being a part of something much bigger than myself,” says Davey. At the same time, God began to place the same call within an eighteen-year-old girl named Amanda. Shortly after, Davey and Amanda met and began dating. After graduation from college, Davey was hired at NewSpring Church to help launch their first satellite campus. Davey and Amanda (also a pastor’s kid) married and for the next two and half years, the newlyweds worked hard at their dream church. In 2011, they were asked to become campus pastors. Reluctant at first, they accepted the call and spent the next four years getting a church plant off the ground in the city of Indianapolis.
UNIMAGINABLE TRAGEDY
By 2015, they had a fifteen-month-old son named Weston and Amanda had just found out she was pregnant. On Tuesdays, Davey would go for an early morning workout at the gym around 4:30 a.m. When he arrived at his house, he opened the door to a nightmare. Amanda was lying face down on the floor with a pool of blood surrounding her head. Davey said, “Jesus, no. Jesus, no. This can’t be happening!” At first, he thought she had a dizzy spell and hit her head, but when he turned her over her nose and mouth were covered in blood. Her breathing was very labored, and she was unresponsive. He dialed 911. Then suddenly he thought to himself, “Where is Weston!?” He went upstairs and found the door to his son’s room still closed. He could hear Weston’s soft coos from his crib and knew he was okay. When the paramedics arrived, they loaded Amanda, who was in serious condition, into the ambulance and Davey and Weston followed them to the hospital. She had three bullet wounds. The third bullet was still lodged behind her eye. While Davey was at the gym a home invasion took place and Amanda was caught in the middle of it.
Davey leaned into his faith with friends and family convinced that God was going to heal his wife. He sat beside Amanda’s hospital bed through the night. Friends reminded him of what he preached that Sunday at church. It was a message from 2 Chronicles 20 about Jehoshaphat, a God-fearing king who found himself in a grave predicament with little chance of victory. Jehoshaphat chose to trust God which is something he had developed in previous years. Davey was desperate for an act of God. The next day, the doctor came in and said, “There is no brain activity. Medically speaking, Amanda has deceased.” Davey was in disbelief as he tried to process what had happened. “No! This can’t be it! This can’t be how it ends!” Devastated, he said goodbye to his wife and began to try and process why God allowed his wife to die.
To make matters worse, Davey was also wrestling with guilt. The morning, he left for the gym he did not lock the front door. Although the men who broke into his home and killed his wife were the criminals, he somehow felt responsible. The media began blowing up his email and voicemail inboxes. “Some had jumped to the worst-case scenarios and were spreading hate and lies as they concocted conspiracy theories of my involvement in my wife’s murder,” reveals Davey. His church sent a crew to his house to help him, and his family navigate the media firestorm.
JOURNEY TO FORGIVENESS
Two weeks after the invasion, three men were arrested for their involvement in Amanda’s murder. When Davey saw them, he began to feel emotions he had never felt before (anger, hatred, rage, and despair). He thought to himself, “Surely Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness didn’t apply to this extreme of a situation!” To make matters worse, Davey had been warned by investigators that unsubstantiated reports of sexual assault might leak to the press. He says, “My mind began to run away with what could have happened in those last forty-five minutes of Amanda’s life. I felt this unexpected part of me rise to the surface, this part of myself I had never known, and that part of me wanted to kill these men and then take my own life. I just wanted to die…Everything I was living for had been taken from me.” When Davey began to see these men with hurt pasts, each with a devastating story he began the process of forgiving them.
One evening, Davey was on his way home when a song that was played at their wedding came on that ministered to him. He cried so hard that he did not feel like crying anymore. He felt empowered to start living again. He began getting up early to read his Bible and look at Amanda’s prayer journals. Davey also began to see a counselor who helped him find purpose in his pain.
As he began to share his story, thousands of people were being affected. People from all over the city were coming to see how his church was thriving despite the tragedy of Amanda’s death. When Davey would get on stage to preach, he no longer did it to impress, he did it to help people. God was emptying Davey of himself so he could expand him for His glory.
After seven years, Amanda’s attackers were brought to justice in 2022. “I couldn’t believe the finality of it. How long we had waited, agonizing over the process, trying our best to move forward with life, all while the legal side of things remained unresolved. How many times it had been rescheduled and mis tried – and in one swoop, it was finished,” shares Davey. Despite the guilty verdict, the pain he endured from his wife’s death could not be taken away. However, Davey did extend forgiveness to the men involved in the home invasion. Two were given abbreviated sentences for their cooperation with the state while the one who killed Amanda was given eighty-six years with an additional twenty years added for a separate case of sexual assault.
REDEMPTION AND HEALING
In 2016, Davey met Kristi at the gym where he was working out. For three months, they only said hello. Davey felt God had put it on his heart to not pursue anything with anyone until after the one-year anniversary of Amanda’s death. He even kept his wedding ring on for a year after she passed away.
Kristi showed up at his church with her three-year-old daughter. Davey wanted to get to know her better, but Kristi did not seem interested although she continued to attend the church. Four months later, he talked with her in the gym. He learned that Kristi’s stepdad was one of the chaplains for the Indiana Marion County prison system who had regular conversations with the man that had killed Amanda.
On November 8, 2017, Davey asked Kristi to marry him, almost two years after Amanda’s death. They married the following month. Unfortunately, the attendance and giving began to decline at his church. This church had been a healing oasis for those who needed to talk about pain and trauma, but as quickly as it grew it also seemed to stall out. During this difficult period, Davey had started a side project called The Nothing is Wasted Podcast. As he talked with others about healing from trauma and tragedy, it also helped him find purpose in helping others through their pain. His executive pastor pointed out that maybe God was drying up the church to bring about a new season in Davey and Kristi’s life. As painful as it was, Davey and Kristi closed the church in 2019. They knew exactly what God wanted them to do: help others navigate pain and trauma. Davey shares, “In every crisis, in every upending event, He’s right there inviting you into a redemption story. One that heals you and leverages the work He’s doing in your life to heal others. He promises not to waste any part of our stories. Eventually, He will work all things together for your good and for the good of those your story touches.”
For more information please visit www.NothingIsWasted.com
CREDITS:
Author, Nothing Is Wasted, (Forefront Books, 2024); Founder and Director of Nothing Is Wasted Ministries, a nonprofit that helps people who have experienced trauma and tragedy to discover God’s purpose in their pain; Former pastor; Speaker; Host of the Nothing Is Wasted Podcast with more than three million downloads and 300 episodes since 2018; Graduate of Southern Wesleyan University in South Carolina; Married to Kristi; Three children: Natalia, Weston, and Cohen
