When my friend Mark McCraw and I reflect on our lives, it's clear that the most transformative moments often spring from the deepest trials. This episode is a testament to that truth as we share the powerful shifts from secular existence to a life embraced by faith in Jesus Christ. Together, we navigate the memories of our previous worldly endeavors, discussing how adversity and a sense of purpose in our professional lives led us down a path to spiritual enlightenment. Mark's leap of faith into the world of Christian radio with me, a mission that resonated hope throughout the Gulf Coast, is a cornerstone of our fellowship that continues to thrive.
Mark's story takes an even more touching turn when he recounts the emotional odyssey with his late wife Patrice – from their love's beginning, through the hardships of infertility, to her valiant battle with cancer. The grace found in their son Grayson, the comfort drawn from the phrase "Thy Will Be Done," and Savannah’s unwavering support highlight an episode that is as much about healing as it is about loss. And as we conclude, I share advice for parents fostering their children's passions and the significance of imparting spiritual wisdom, trusting in God's timing. It's a conversation that promises to move hearts and strengthen beliefs, shining a light on the enduring message that through it all, Jesus is the constant answer.
If you would like to share your story, click this link: https://thepromoter.org/story/
Thanks for Listening, and subscribe to hear a new episode each week!
When my friend Mark McCraw and I reflect on our lives, it's clear that the most transformative moments often spring from the deepest trials. This episode is a testament to that truth as we share the powerful shifts from secular existence to a life embraced by faith in Jesus Christ. Together, we navigate the memories of our previous worldly endeavors, discussing how adversity and a sense of purpose in our professional lives led us down a path to spiritual enlightenment. Mark's leap of faith into the world of Christian radio with me, a mission that resonated hope throughout the Gulf Coast, is a cornerstone of our fellowship that continues to thrive.
Mark's story takes an even more touching turn when he recounts the emotional odyssey with his late wife Patrice – from their love's beginning, through the hardships of infertility, to her valiant battle with cancer. The grace found in their son Grayson, the comfort drawn from the phrase "Thy Will Be Done," and Savannah’s unwavering support highlight an episode that is as much about healing as it is about loss. And as we conclude, I share advice for parents fostering their children's passions and the significance of imparting spiritual wisdom, trusting in God's timing. It's a conversation that promises to move hearts and strengthen beliefs, shining a light on the enduring message that through it all, Jesus is the constant answer.
If you would like to share your story, click this link: https://thepromoter.org/story/
Thanks for Listening, and subscribe to hear a new episode each week!
Ron Meyers:
A friend for many, many years. Welcome to the studios, mark. Thank you, very nice studio. Well, I wanted to talk with you because you and I have a past. I mean you and I before Jesus' days and after Jesus' days, and where did we first meet?
Mark McCraw:
Back in 1985. I moved here to the coast in 84, and we were doing an event with the radio station and I think I met you in your office back in 1985 when you were wearing the starch crisp shirts with nice ties and little suspenders.
Ron Meyers:
Suspenders. Yeah, I looked important. That was important in my own mind. But yes, in our journey, both led us different roads. How did you meet Jesus?
Mark McCraw:
Uh, both led us different roads. How did you meet Jesus? It was July, june or July of 1998 before Hurricane George came, came ashore. It seemed like everybody I ran into in my just daily travels around the coast, going to the store and whatnot. It seemed like everybody was telling me about Jesus. And I thought to myself why are all these people telling me about Jesus? And then, in August of 98, I found out why that's when my wife at the time was going to file for divorce. And all of that led to me getting back into a men's group in church. Even though I wasn't officially going to the church yet, I started going to the men's meetings once a month. And then in December December 7th 1998 is when I actually walked the aisle and gave my life to Christ.
Ron Meyers:
Wow, you know and you bring up a point that sometimes I encourage people. If you don't really know about Jesus, just test the waters. Go to a study group once a month. Just go check it out, see if we really have little antennas coming out of our head and if we can talk in weird language. No, we're just normal people like everybody else that wanted to trade in our life of so many nonsensical things that we did in life to a life of peace, purpose and passion. And now when I met you, you were secular radio.
Mark McCraw:
You've been on like radio all over the state of Mississippi. Basically, yeah, yeah, yes. I got started in radio in 1980, back in Hattiesburg, when I was going to USM studying criminal justice, and I decided that radio was what I wanted to do instead of being a police officer getting shot at.
Ron Meyers:
So that's it. And when I had an opportunity in 2000, and I believe it was one or two or something to become manager of American Family Radio Gulf Coast, I called you and I said, mark, I need you for the morning show and because you're such a godly man and you're such an incredible presence on radio, and you did the journey that's right, it was after Candy Anderson had left WAOY back in the day and you were the journey.
Mark McCraw:
That's right, it was after Candy Anderson had left WAOY back in the day and you were the manager. You called me and I don't know, it was just. You know, when you called me and asked me about doing a morning show, I thought, wow, yeah, okay, this would work.
Ron Meyers:
You know, because at the time our pastor at Northwood had gotten us in the habit of reading the one-year Bible on a daily basis and I had already been through the Bible probably five times, cover to cover, and I just realized that there was so much encouragement in the Word of God that it would just benefit anybody, whether Christian or not, and so you and I, I started assembling a team of sharp people and our message was this and I had no experience in Christian radio, but I did have an organization in the production business was to take this station and we call it the light of the Gulf Coast and put it all over the Gulf Coast and just promote Jesus. And we had fun, didn't we? We?
Mark McCraw:
did, absolutely, we had fun, you know, in WAOY at that time, because of the placement of the tower and the antenna, we had phone calls from people up in Jackson saying they were picking us up.
Ron Meyers:
Yeah, I know, yeah and only God could do that. And then of course I know, yeah, only God could do that. And and then of course, life changes. But I do want to go back to something because, friends, I want you to get this picture. When Mark and I first met, he was at a secular radio station and he was an emcee for some of my events that had bikini contest and we were selling lots of beer. So we were having fun in the world, but at the right time, with God's awesome destiny mind, he took us in separate journeys, took us out of the world and put us in Jesus. And today we've been friends for many years. And how many years? Well, 1998. I was 1999. I didn't realize we were that close together of really coming to know Jesus.
Mark McCraw:
It's amazing you know God's timing, how he works things together for our good and for his purpose and his will.
Ron Meyers:
And I'll never forget how we saw it with this. When we were the station, we had what was called an open door policy. We wanted people to come by, have coffee, get a prayer, whatever they needed to do, and we had people coming in all the time of just some encouragement and to see the body of Christ in action by just loving people and praying with them. It was pretty special.
Mark McCraw:
It was. It was really special. You know we were talking about you and I getting saved about the same time. You used to have the Warehouse Church back in. What was that? 99 or 2000?
Ron Meyers:
Well, let me give you a little background. I had the Warehouse Church but, friends, it was not a church, it was a warehouse full of all my props and buildings for my festivals and the beer booths and everything. Well, when I started following Jesus, I was poor. I was so poor I couldn't pay attention. But I was happy and I had to close this warehouse.
Ron Meyers:
Nobody wanted that wood, nobody wanted the two by fours, Nobody wanted the signage the four by eight sheets of plywood. And I really heard that quiet voice that said build a church. To make a long story short, because it's all in my book and I'll send it to you if you want one listeners. Within seven days we had a and then I felt the Lord say go, invite people from Feed my Sheep and the Red Cross and do it on a Tuesday night. Don't compete with the churches. And we just started, you know, doing a service with some music and you know maybe three or four people inside the warehouse and it just started growing. And remember that we would often look up in this warehouse and see rats go across the rafters and if people went to the restroom you could hear what they were doing.
Mark McCraw:
But nobody cared, mark, because we were just looking for an encounter with Jesus Exactly, and I think the people that attended the warehouse church, they were looking for an encounter with Jesus too, because and we've talked about this before that so many of the people who came to the warehouse church probably would never set foot in a regular church because they felt like they would not be welcomed.
Ron Meyers:
You know, and and, and I've always felt that the ministry that God has called me to is outside the four walls, in a warehouse, at the Walmarts, at the gas stations, the radio for podcasts, that people, who's going to hit the people that don't go to church? We can invite them, but they're not going to come to church. Maybe at Christmas, maybe at Easter. So let's go meet them. Let's find innovative ways to think outside the box to reach a hurting population that really does need Jesus. They just don't know it because no one's really ever communicated the real Jesus to them. In my opinion, You're right.
Mark McCraw:
You're right, Exactly right. You know, and a lot of the people that came to the warehouse church were homeless. Oh yeah, you know.
Ron Meyers:
I can remember one gentleman, a young guy by the name of.
Mark McCraw:
Robert, you know, and a lot of the people that came to the warehouse church were homeless. Oh yeah, you know. I can remember one gentleman, a young guy by the name of Robert, you know, that used to come to the warehouse church. He would always show up on his bicycle yeah, with no seat, no seat, no seat. He would ride that bicycle standing up and he would come to the warehouse church on Tuesday nights and he was such a good guy and just talking to him you could see that there was that spark in him.
Ron Meyers:
Yeah, and there were times that one of there was a few people that had to spend the night in the warehouse church or they stayed there and really there wasn't anything in there except the little rats running around. I said, hey, if you don't mind, you can be the security guard, but we had such a love for people in the community and we would go out often and we'd fire up the grill, have some hot dogs free for the people, some hamburgers, and come and go outside the warehouse, out onto the yard, across the street, and just do something. And you know, there's something about the freedom in Christ when you don't know any better. And what I mean is no training, no classes, you just start doing something and talking about Jesus and it just takes a life of its own on?
Mark McCraw:
Yeah, it does. It's kind of scary to step out in the unknown sometimes.
Ron Meyers:
And then Mark, and then we became good friends with you and I had the pleasure I forgot about this to marry you and your wife Patrice, and tell us a little bit about that beautiful encounter, the marriage, and then what you went through a few years ago.
Mark McCraw:
Yeah, patrice. I like to say that Patrice is the one in a million woman. She was one in a million. I can remember, you know, I used to run sound at the church many years ago and Patrice would come up and talk to me, you know, after the services a lot of times, and then sometimes we would hang out in the parking lot talking until you know just, we were basically the only ones left in the parking lot. And then one night at Taco Bell, I can remember we were eating after a church service and she was talking about something and I remember thinking to myself you know, I wouldn't mind being married to this woman.
Mark McCraw:
And this was after we had already we had already gone to see a movie and they went to lunch afterwards and I told her. I said look, you know, I'm not looking for a relationship. I've just recently become divorced and I don't want to be the guy who comes to church looking for a new wife. And I remember telling her that day if you want us to be friends and just go have lunch every now and then maybe go to a movie, we can do that, you know. But I'm just not looking for a serious relationship. And then the Taco Bell moment happened several months later. That's a TV commercial.
Ron Meyers:
You might get royalties.
Mark McCraw:
Patrice and I got married on April the 20th in 2001. And we were together for nearly 20 years. We tried to have children and couldn't. She had endometriosis in a very serious way and we decided to adopt, and that's when we adopted. Grayson was back in 2011 when he was born and we walked with his mother through the pregnancy. We brought him home from the hospital and she had eight, nine wonderful years with him and I, Wow.
Mark McCraw:
And so in 2014, she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The doctor made the decision to do a total hysterectomy, got that done and within a year she was diagnosed with cancer again, and one thing led to another and it just kept getting worse and worse. It was like none of the treatments that we tried were working. You know, sometimes we would get a decent report from the doctor, but it was never exactly what we wanted to hear, and many times, when we came out of the appointments, the song Thy Will Be Done would be playing on the radio. Wow, and it was just so odd and I mean it got to the point that we would come out of a doctor's appointment with the worst possible news that the cancer had spread to her lungs, it had spread to her lymph nodes. And every time we got in the car, that song Thy Will Be Done would be playing on the radio. And it got to the point where we were crying and laughing at the same time.
Ron Meyers:
Wow, Wow, Somebody going through something like that right now. What would you tell them? It sounds like you're talking their story.
Mark McCraw:
You got to trust God. Everything passes through God's hands the good stuff, the bad stuff, everything passes through his hands, and I think that God doesn't cause bad things to happen, but there is a purpose for everything that does happen. That's what I believe, and I don't know why God would take Patrice out of this world when she had such a huge heart for children, you know. And now that she finally had a son of her own and passed away with endometrial cancer, the final straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. She developed blood clots in her legs and they were talking about amputation, but it would do nothing to address the cancer. And that was that was it. That was June of 2020. She went into hospice and, for someone who might be going through something similar to this, the thing is that the Bible tells us that we can pray and we can ask for whatever we need. God already knows what we need, but we need to understand that in the end, when all is said and done, god's will is going to be done.
Ron Meyers:
Amen, as you said, that song Thy Will Be Done.
Mark McCraw:
Exactly. But you know, Ron, through all of this we had been believing for Patrice's healing. We had been believing that God would heal her. And even all the time that she was in hospice we were believing, right up until her very last breath, that God was going to heal her. And even all the time that she was in hospice, you know, we were believing, right up until her very last breath, that God was going to heal her. And in her passing, you know, I got the revelation that in her passing she received her ultimate healing, that in death we get our ultimate healing. So healing may not take place here on earth, but it does in death.
Ron Meyers:
Wow, but now you are a wonderful dad, little Grayson. He has grown up to be a good young man. How old is he now?
Mark McCraw:
He's 13 years old. 13 years old and taller than I am. Of course he likes to tell everybody that he's taller than me because I'm short.
Ron Meyers:
You know I've said sometimes Mark, god knows everything. He knows the beginning from the end, and he knew one day that Patrice would be gone and you'd be alone. Have you ever thought that that's why he blessed you so early with Grayson? Because if you didn't have Grayson right now, it was just you.
Mark McCraw:
Look, you know, I make no bones about it, the first two years after Patrice passed were hard. They were very difficult. It was almost like time stopped. You know, the only thing that kept me going was Grayson and my daughter Savannah. She's 30 now. Had it not been for the two of them, I don't know where I'd be. I just I don't know. It was just like I was. You know, when you, when you are a caretaker for someone that you love as deeply as I loved Patrice, you know, and then all of a sudden they pass away, it's almost like, well, what do I do now? Yeah, what do you do now? What do I do now? You know, and and thank goodness that I had Grayson and my daughter Savannah, and you had, something else is a lot of friends.
Ron Meyers:
I mean, everybody loves Mark McCraw. You're a kind, you're a gentle man. I mean, mark, you helped me with production, with this podcast, with this radio show. You still have a job, but I call you coach. You helped me because you are a brilliant sound man and with production, which you do some things now for iHeartRadio, you're so good and there's a lot of people that were praying for you when you didn't even know them and just like a lot of people listening right now, that sometimes you think you're all alone. But there are people that love you, they care about you and they're praying for you right now and you may never know about it, but there are people that feel the pains that we go through and they pray for us. Without calling us. They say I'm going to pray for Ron today. I'm going to pray for Mark today, yeah, do you ever feel those prayers?
Mark McCraw:
Oh, I do, I do. I feel them all the time.
Ron Meyers:
So what's the future? Like You've got little Grayson 13. What's he want to do when he grows up? Be in radio like his daddy.
Mark McCraw:
Oh, I don't know about that. You know, grayson and I we met with his counselor a few weeks ago. It was just a, you know, normal, usual meeting with the counselor, just to discuss grades, and you know what's coming up next year. And she asked him have you thought about what you want to do for a career? And of course he's only 13 years old, you know, and I've always encouraged him, you know, figure out what you enjoy doing and then try to get a job doing that. And then it's like you won't ever be going to work every day, you'll just be going to do something you enjoy. And she mentioned engineering to him and he perked up and said oh, that sounds good. And when I started thinking about what engineering entails, there are so many different areas that he can go into Software development, computer engineering, you know. Even radio stations, you know. Still, radio stations need engineers to maintain the transmitters, you know.
Ron Meyers:
So any number of areas and I know you told him that God has a plan and God has destiny and just to trust in Jesus and it will all fall in place.
Mark McCraw:
Yeah, is it?
Ron Meyers:
that simple, does it just all fall in place, mark?
Mark McCraw:
Well, you know, I got to tell you. You know I take every opportunity I can to teach him about God and teach him about the Bible, you know. But I understand that at 13 years old, you know there are other things that have your attention. Yeah, so I'm trusting God and I'm believing God that he will call Grayson when the time is right.
Ron Meyers:
Amen brother, that's some good parental advice. Can't push him, can't push him. Got to love the hell out of them. Well, mark, before we go, will you pray for the listeners?
Mark McCraw:
Our Father in heaven. Lord, god, I just thank you for this opportunity to speak to those who are listening to this program. Father, you know the troubles and the trials they're going through. You know the challenges of their life. Dear Lord, I just ask you just to touch them, lord. Father, call them by name. Father, god, give them wisdom in all of their situations. Help them, lord, to see that Jesus is the answer. Father, that Jesus will help them, will take them by the hand and lead them through the troubles and the trials that they may be going through. Thank you, god, that your word in Isaiah 41 says that you will help us, for you are our God, and we thank you, father, for everything that you do for us. Thank you for being our refuge and our strength in times of trouble. Thank you, god, for everything you do for us. In Jesus' name, amen.
