Ron Hall
Working Our Way Home
“They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.”
—Philip James Bailey
When Ron Hall decided to admit to Debbie, his wife of many years, that he had had an affair with another woman, he was not prepared for her response. “I had an affair, and she forgave me for it. She said, ‘If you will never do this again, I will never mention this again. We will wipe the slate clean, and you will be forgiven.’” Experiencing Christlike forgiveness was something that Ron had heard about several times, but it wasn’t until he experienced it firsthand that he knew it was real. His wife had granted him the kind of forgiveness that most people dream of receiving. She said to him, “You’re not going to live under this condemnation. You are forgiven, and we’ll build our lives back together.” In return, he told her he would do anything she asked of him for the rest of their lives together. In response, his wife said, “I just want you to be a faithful husband. That’s really all I expect.” From then on, Debbie never brought up Ron’s affair again.
It wasn’t until ten years after the affair that Debbie asked Ron to do something that pushed him outside of his comfort zone. Debbie had had a dream from God about a homeless man, in which God asked her to befriend the homeless man. Determined to find him, Debbie told Ron about her dream and asked him to help her fulfill God’s mission for her. Ron initially thought her dream seemed a little bizarre, but he had promised her to do whatever she asked of him. The next morning, they drove to the inner city of Fort Worth, Texas, searching for the man from Debbie’s dream. They drove down backstreets and alleys, and after driving around for hours, they decided to stop and volunteer at a homeless shelter. They had been serving in the shelter for about two weeks when a shirtless man stormed in, screaming at the top of his lungs that he was going to kill whoever had stolen his shoes. The man began throwing tables across the room and hitting people. While Ron got to his knees to hide, Debbie jumped up and down, shouting, “That’s him, that’s him! That’s the man in my dream!” Ron was stunned. Debbie looked at him calmly and said, “Ron, I believe I heard from God that you have to be his friend.”
Ron wasn’t exactly eager, but he knew what he needed to do. In the following weeks, he asked around for information about the homeless man. The man’s name was Denver, but most people called him Lion of the Jungle because he ruled the streets with fear and intimidation. Others called him Suicide, “because messing with him was equivalent to committing suicide.”
Over the next five months, Ron drove to the inner city, passing by Denver every day. Ron tried to convince him to get in his car so he could befriend him as his wife had asked. One morning, to his horror, Denver accepted. Ron could sense the anger seething within his passenger. Denver asked Ron why he had been bothering him for so long. Ron replied, “Man, I just want to be your friend.” Denver responded in a low growl, “Man, I might think about that.” It was clear that Denver wasn’t looking to add any friends to his list, but Ron was persistent. He had no clue why Denver wouldn’t want to become friends with him; Ron was well-off and could provide clothing, food, and help for someone in his position.
A few weeks later, Ron saw Denver again, out on the streets searching through a dumpster, and asked him to join him for some coffee. Denver told Ron to leave him alone. Ron replied, “I would, but my wife says we have to be friends.” So Denver agreed to go get a coffee, but only after making one thing very clear to Ron.
“Well, I heard when white folks go fishing,” said Denver, “they do this thing called catch and release. I don’t get it. Because back on the plantation where I grew up in Louisiana, we’d go out in the morning and dig us a can full of worms, get us a cane fishing pole, and sit on the riverbank all day. And when we finally got something on our line, we were really proud of what we caught. So it occurred to me, if you just a white man fishing for a friend, and you gonna catch and release, I ain’t got no desire to be your friend.” It was then that Ron realized Denver’s wisdom. Ron was instantly hooked, and he decided to enroll in the “school of Denver.” Ron would drive down to the inner city every day and sit on the curb with Denver, listening to what he had to say. While getting to know each other, Ron learned that part of Denver’s hesitation with befriending Ron and Debbie had to do with his upbringing on the plantation. As a fifteen-year-old, he was roped and dragged by the Ku Klux Klan for helping a white woman change a flat tire. The Klan made Denver promise that he would never speak to or approach another white woman again, and it wasn’t until meeting Debbie that he had disobeyed the Klan’s orders. Later, Denver would predict Debbie’s diagnosis of cancer; and during the nineteen months that she battled cancer, Denver and Ron became closer than ever. Denver showed up on their doorstep every morning offering words of faith.
On the day Debbie died, Denver showed up on their doorstep and informed her that that was the day she would meet God. Denver shared with Ron that God said Debbie was holding on to make sure that the homeless would be taken care of in her absence. Throughout her sickness, Debbie would still go down to the homeless shelter and do makeovers for the women. She was committed to caring for the homeless, and Denver gave her the message to let her know it was okay to go. “I know you don’t know who’s gonna take care of them, the homeless. But God told me last night, he said, ‘Denver, you tell Miss Debbie to lay down her torch and you pick it up for the rest of your life.’” After Debbie passed, Denver moved in with Ron, and the two of them lived together for the next eleven years, until Denver joined Debbie in heaven.
Ron says this story “was all based on an act of forgiveness that she showed me. It was the greatest gift she gave me. She never mentioned my affair again, until the very last day, when she died.” Just a few days before Debbie passed away, she lay on her bed, with her kids and her husband by her side, and told them that she was releasing her husband to remarry and be with whomever he wanted after she was gone, and she asked her kids to honor that, too. Ron knows that his and his wife’s love story could have ended in a very different way, “because we came to a point where we had to make a decision to love each other and stay with each other. Because of that forgiveness, we’ve now raised over a hundred million dollars for the homeless across America. It’s a story grounded in that one act of forgiveness, because had she not given me or shown me that forgiveness, I would’ve run off with another woman and it would’ve been a very different story—one of the saddest stories ever told.”
Ron still reflects on being given the gift of forgiveness with a sense of awe. He says that it took him about a year to really believe his wife had forgiven him, but he always felt her love and kindness throughout their journey together. Ron also reflects on the times he had to practice forgiveness in his friendship with Denver, when the older man would try to hit him or yell at him. All the work Debbie did with the homeless, and the work Ron continues to do, would not exist without forgiveness.
Ron sees Denver as a spiritual savant. When they first met, Ron knew Denver had not really connected with anyone in more than twenty-five years, except from a place of anger. He would then go on to become Ron’s best friend. He knows that their friendship is all thanks to the Christlike forgiveness he received from Debbie. Her simple act of saying, “I will never bring this up again. You are forgiven,” changed the course of Ron’s life forever.
When Denver spoke at Debbie’s funeral, he talked about the presence of Christ in her: “I was a bad man, a bad person. I didn’t deserve love. But some very unlikely person came up and showed me love. I didn’t wanna be friends with any white ladies, but she was so different. The longer I got to know her, I found out that everybody’s different. The same kind of different as me. We just all regular folks walking down the road that God done put in front of us.” Debbie and Ron’s open embrace of Denver showed him how connected we all are, whatever our circumstances. As Denver said, “Whether we’s rich or whether we’s poor, or something in between, this earth ain’t no final resting place. So in a way, we all are homeless, just working our way home.”
I wanted to include Ron’s experience not only because it’s a remarkable story in itself, but because it is told by someone on the receiving end of forgiveness—someone who didn’t necessarily feel that he deserved it. Many of us have been lucky enough to be at the receiving end of being forgiven for an act that we were sure we would be forever punished for. Hearing Ron’s story made me reconsider how I think about receiving forgiveness, since the way that Debbie forgave Ron completely allowed him to alter the direction of his life. Going forward, when I am forgiven, I know that I’ll think more deeply about how I might redirect my actions in the future for the better—to see it as an opportunity to embrace making a positive change for others around me.